"Health food may be good for the conscience, but Oreos taste a hell of a lot better" -Robert Redford
Right now, I can tell you emphatically that I want nothing, NOTHING, more than a gigantic pizza for dinner.
Greasy.
Cheesy.
Hot.
Pizza.
NOW!
As I write this, long grain rice is bubbling away in the rice cooker that will be mixed with a delicious blend of beans, veggies and garlic when it is done. Chicken is mingling with a zero-calorie herb rub, waiting for Jason to grill it.
But, still... the idea of pizza.... it is plaguing me.
Why is it that food that is calorie-laden is the best tasting? Why can't lettuce, as is often lamented, taste like chocolate? And, why is there 100 calories in a tablespoon of butter?
It's not easy eating healthy.... notice I said "healthy" and not "right." There is a distinction to be made. Eating is not about "right" and "wrong." It's about "healthy" and "unhealthy."
It's not "wrong" for me to eat a slice of pizza. It is "wrong" for me to eat four slices of pizza.
But, even though one slice of pizza is not "wrong," one slice of pizza will not fill me up nearly as well as a whole cup of rice and beans and a few grilled chicken tenderloins. I know this. You know this. We all know this.
I know I must sound dreadfully boring. But, twoday is all about relationships. And, I don't want any one of you out there to pretend that you don't have a lifelong relationship with food, healthy or otherwise.
We often hear that Europeans have notoriously healthy relationships with food. French women sit and eat brie cheese with a chunk of baguette and a cappuccino made with full fat milk on random Mondays at their local cafes for hours on end while they chat with their girlfriends.
What do they know that we don't? What do they understand about food that we don't?
They understand moderation. And, they understand that a cappuccino made with full-fat milk is more satisfying than any non-fat half-caf sugar-free caramel macchiatto we can get from Starbucks.
Americans don't.
The French also understand that you shouldn't feel bad about craving delicious, full flavor food.
Americans don't.
Our nation's relationship with food is, in my mind, like our nation's relationship to sex: we feel like both things are naughty when really, both things are an inherent part of life.
The timer has gone off on the rice cooker and Jason has started grilling our chicken. So, I am going to do what nutritional gurus always tell us to do.
I'm going to limit my distractions while I eat. I'm going to turn off my iPad, silence my cell phone and sit at a table and have a conversation while we eat our dinner.
Even though I don't get to eat that pizza I was thinking about when I sat down to write this evening, at least I get to have a delicious conversation.
Maybe I'm not so different from the French ladies at their cafes, after all.
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Sally Turkovich thinks we should all start a book club and read French Women Don't Get Fat.
Find her on Facebook and tell her what your biggest food craving is.
erikdolnack
A recent study was done on the French diet. By all definition, the French should be an obese people based on their diet. (The French diet defies all known rules: it’s heavy with cream, dairy, high in carbohydrates, and starch). But the French aren’t overweight. In fact, the French on average are far leaner and healthier eaters than their American counterparts. Why is this?
The study found that much of the prevailing myths about calories and carbs is an incorrect paradigm. The factor that too few dietary studies take into account is processed foods.
The French diet, it was discovered, is primarily natural food and little of it is processed food stuffs. The French aren’t eating corporate cheeses, mixed with chemicals and other additives. The cheeses the French eat come straight from a local farmer. The French aren’t eating foods loaded with high fructose corn syrup and other processed additives that the body can’t break down easily. The French diet is pretty simple and mostly organic. The bread that the French consume in such vast quantities is made from unbleached natural flour with eggs, real butter, and pure clean water. No food coloring. No preservatives. No additives. No weird chemicals. It’s all real food, the way mother nature intended.
Our bodies have evolved to eat food stuffs from the natural world around us. Our bodies did not evolve to digest FD&C red #5 and acesulfame-potassium.
I would love to do a study on the Amish Dutch and the simple organic diet that they consume. I’ll bet the results of that study would show that the Amish have very low cases of cancer in their community as compared to the surrounding US inhabitants who devour corporate food do.
I always say: if it has a corporate logo on, don’t eat or drink it!