The French Secret

Here’s a long article from the International Herald Tribune that reports that the French, like the rest of the world, are finally getting fat.

Doctors here are perplexed by the runaway success in the United States of the best-selling advice book “French Women Don’t Get Fat.”

“Oh, but they do!” said Dr. France Bellisle, a prominent obesity researcher here. “I work in a nutrition department where we see lots of people who are overweight. And I can tell you that French women are getting obese - and some massively obese - these days.”

In fact, France is suffering something of an obesity crisis, with rates here rising “at an alarming rate,” particularly among young people, Bellisle said. True, absolute rates are still lower here than in the United States and most other European countries: 11.3 percent of the French are obese and nearly 40 percent overweight, compared with more than 50 percent overweight in Britain and the United States.

But the sudden sharp rise - 5 percent annually since 1997 - is causing great alarm in a society renowned for thinness, a country that long seemed exempt from a worldwide epidemic of obesity.

Yes, the French are getting fat. Most of us never thought they were genetically exempt from obesity, only that the traditional French diet and way of eating, combined with their habit of walking everywhere, kept them from the acheiving the levels of obesity we’ve seen elsewhere in the developing world.

Here’s our good friend Mireille Guiliano to remind us of that.

In her book “French Women Don’t Get Fat,” Mireille Guiliano, a French-born executive who now lives in New York, attributes her own slimness to traditional French meal culture, which she suggests infuses in women an appreciation of healthy diet, exercise and the discipline to consume smaller portions.

In theory, researchers heartily agree. But, they say, that way of eating is no longer the French norm, and no longer practical, either.

As for Guiliano, still svelte at nearly 60, they suggest there may be more going on.

“Educated women have less of a tendency to get fat in any culture,” Dr. Bellisle said. “They have the financial means to buy the right food and the right clothes, which is a big incentive to stay thin.”

Whatever works, is what I say.

While we’re talking about the aging of French beauties, here’s a picture from Cannes of the 41-year-old Juliette Binoche.

It’s not a terribly flattering haircut, but she’s nonetheless very beauty, and thus far seems to have avoided the temptations of cosmetic surgery.

It’s no secret that we here at the French Secret are more than somewhat obsessed with Catherine Deneuve. So in the spirit of that obsession, here are two very recent pictures of La Deneuve at the Cannes Film Festival.

I have to say, that for a woman of 62 she looks great. One thing that’s really helped her age well, aside from spectacular genetics, is that she hasn’t let herself get too skinny.

Yes, it seems somewhat contradictory to be talking about not being too skinny at a blog that spends a good deal of time considering the latest French diet fads, but there you have it. Look at the pictures and tell me that a couple of extra pounds hasn’t helped her keep the wrinkles somewhat at bay. Naturally, this isn’t a license to go wild with the eating. Moderation is, after all, a French diet virtue.

I’ve noticed that more than a few poeple have come to this blog (this too infrequently updated blog) looking for information on Mireille Guiliano’s “Magical Leek Soup”, the dish that will jump start your French Woman’s diet.

Here’s the recipe for this weight loss wonder.

Magical Leek Soup

Serves 1 for the weekend

Ingredients
2 pounds leeks

1. Clean the leeks and rinse well to get rid of sand and soil. Cut off the ends of the dark green parts, leaving all the white parts plus a suggestion of pale green. (Reserve the extra greens for soup stock.)

2. Put the leeks in a large pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer uncovered for 20 to 30 minutes. Pour off the liquid and reserve. Place the leeks in a bowl.

The juice is to be drunk (reheated or at room temperature to taste) every 2 to 3 hours, 1 cup at a time. For meals, or whenever hungry, have some of the leeks themselves, 1/2 cup at a time. Drizzle with a few drops of extra-virgin olive oil and lemon juice. Season sparingly with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with chopped parsley if you wish.

This will be your nourishment for both days, until Sunday dinner, when you can have a small piece of meat or fish (4 to 6 ounces—don’t lose that scale yet!), with 2 vegetables, steamed with a bit of butter or olive oil, and a piece of fruit.

What you’re supposed to do is make the diet soup at the start of the weekend and enjoy until Sunday night. Actually, as much as I like leeks, it sounds like a fairly unpleasant to start your diet. But, it is only for one weekend, right?

Buy French Women Don’t Get Fat

Here’s a picture of Catherine Deneuve with her magical diet secret.

Uh oh, let the backlash begin!

n the recent verbal salvos between the United States and France, perhaps it was inevitable that we would only find detente on the battlefields of the Diet Wars. I refer, of course, to the nationally bestselling book, “French Women Don’t Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure,'’ penned by Mireille Guiliano.

How remarkable that less than two years after there was a bitter campaign to rename french fries “freedom fries,'’ we’re now clamoring for French-style freedom from flab. And the battle plan was so simple. All Guiliano had to do was hit us in the belly by focusing on eating for quality rather than quantity. Just start with her “Magical Leek Soup'’ for three days, she writes, and then you can usher in a wonderful new lifestyle that includes delicious bits of butter, cream, chocolate and wine.

The book’s smug tone force-feeds the notion that French women are far more sexy than Americans, informing us that among our differences are: “French women love fashion'’ and “French women love to laugh.'’ Oh, give me a très grand break. The only time I’ve heard of French women really guffawing is when they’re watching Jerry Lewis or listening to Americans trying to speak French.

Yes, there is something a little smug about those who are touting the French diet, and their belief in the superiority of the French manner of eating. But, then it works, doesn’t it? Even this reviewer, writing in the San Jose Mercury, has to admit that there is truth here.

Nevertheless, even Yank nutritionists and counselors heartily approve of Guiliano’s central message. “The good part of what she says is emphasizing the sensuality of food and liberating eating from `morality,’ ‘’ said Deb Burgard, a psychologist in Los Altos who specializes in weight and eating disorders. “She makes it clear that we deserve a lot more pleasure from what we eat and a lot higher quality.'’

Once again, the French diet is about moderation and pleasure. You eat well, but you don’t eat huge. You savor moderate quantities of excellent food.

Here, for your viewing pleasure, another picture of the 61 year old Catherine Deneuve aging well.

Here’s a blog that I definitely need to add to my blogroll. Cucina Testa Rossa, a blog that promises its readers a “culinary journey through France.”

Sounds like it’s right up our allez.

Here are several good pieces of fun anecdotal evidence from the blog of the Food Musuem.

Mireille Guiliano is by no mens the first person to have written a book on the power of the French diet. In fact, since the CBS’s Sixty Minutes did their famous story on the French Paradox nearly a decade ago, several authors have turned out their own version of the French diet book.

I’ve purchased a couple of them, and looked at more than a few of them, usually over a strong coffee and a croissant in a bookstore coffeeshop, and so I’m somewhat qualified to make a few remarks about each of them over the next few days.

First up: The Fat Fallacy : The French Diet Secrets to Permanent Weight Loss by Will Clower.

Like many of the French diet diet books, this one is less about specific diet plans, and more about trying to address the unhealthy American diet, trying to get American to stop gobbling giant portions and eat like the French. Although, it’s also clear that Clower, neuroscientist is more than a little dogmatic in his reponse to temptation, saying over and over again, “not one ounce” to all sorts of temptations. That, of course, does not sound very French.

Once again the “secrets’ revealed aren’t that secret. Avoid the junk food; slow down and savor; olive oil is good; giant portions are bad; etc, etc.

Still, on the whole the advice is sound and one could do a lot worse than follow his advice with regard to eating and exercise.

Here’s another article about Mirelle Guiliano, this one from U.S.A. Today

When French-born Mireille Guiliano was walking through Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport a few weeks ago, she looked at all the people who were eating and tried to find some who were enjoying their food.What she observed were people gulping down hamburgers and fries while typing on their laptops, talking on their cell phones or reading the newspaper.

“I couldn’t see anyone eating with pleasure,” says Guiliano, 58, CEO of Clicquot Inc., a U.S. subsidiary of Champagne Veuve Clicquot. “Food is one of the best pleasures in life. We should not eat like we’re robots or on autopilot. It’s not like eating. It’s like stuffing yourself.”

And that, she says, is the difference between the way the French and Americans view food. And it explains in part why Americans struggle more with their weight than the French do. Perhaps it’s time for the French women’s diet.

I don’t know about you, but I when I’m in the airport, I find that it’s awfully hard to locate a nice little bistro, one that serves a crusty baguette, a runny cheese and a glass of fine wine.

Nonetheless, I suspose that the point is well taken. Part of this french diet is built on the savoring of smaller portions of good quality food, rather than substituting quantity for quality as too many Americans already do.

Here’s a link to a funny account of a Mireille Guiliano book signing in Houston, Texas, a city that Men’s Fitness has declared contains the “fattest people in the country.”

For those of you who were wondering what Mireille Guiliano, the author of French Women Don’t Get Fat, looks like, here’s a picture. Predictably, she’s quite attractive.

Madame Guiliano has been popping up all over the country touting her book. This photo was part of an appearance on CBS’s morning show.

Here, as a special bonus for the few of you who read this blog, is a list of bullet points that outline her theories about staying fit..

Savor What You Eat
Slow And Steady
Variety of Foods
Drink Water
Ritual Eating
Portion Control
Walk
Ritual Preparations

All good, sensible advice.

I’ve added a page that has a few brief reviews of travel guides for France. There’s not much there yet, but I’ll be adding to it as we go forward here.

Catherine Deneuve should be the official mascot of this blog. She’s everything that this blog stands for, the meeting of French culture, French habits and French beauty.

Here she is at 61 looking better than most women look at 21. Yes, she started out nearly perfect, but time has not been unkind to her. Perhaps it is that chain smoking, after all.

There’s a very good, funny article in the International Herald Tribue about the French Paradox, one which points at the one of the French Ssecrets to a slim figure is smoking like a chimney. Here a taste.

According to major surveys from both nations, the percentage of French women who smoke is five points higher than the percentage of American women. Researchers have dismissed this difference as statistically insignificant.

A stark gap emerges, however, if you compare elites from both countries. In America, where cigarettes now have a loser image, only about one-tenth of those with college and graduate degrees smoke, compared with about 40 percent of high school dropouts. But in France, nearly a third of upper-income earners smoke, a slightly higher percentage than in the lower classes.

So those chic uppercrust French women trotting around not getting fat smoke far more than their American counterparts.

The writer, Jessica Siegel, is also quick to note that French beauty Catherine Deneuve credits chain-smoking as her beauty secret.

Of course, we here that French Secret would never recommend a three-pack-a-day habit as the sure course to svelteness, beauty and well-being.

Here’s a link to yet another article about the French paradox. This one, by Dr. Andrew Weil, notes that the key to the French diet is quality, not quantity.

[W]ithout a doubt, the French do enjoy their food. Although they are picking up some of our bad habits, they still take time to enjoy food with family and friends. They have no guilt about indulging in really good meals and getting full pleasure from them. The French eat much less processed food than we do and generally have access to higher-quality ingredients. Their food - from fruits and vegetables to cheese and poultry - tastes better than ours. By emphasizing better food, they are able to be satisfied with less.

Overall, Americans are eating more low-quality foods and getting less satisfaction from them. The French do it better.

Indeed, the French do do it better where food is concerned. Americans are catching up in the culinary department, at least on the coasts. Unfortunately, until we can convince most people that eating moderate quantities of high quality food is preferable to bellying up to the crap-filled buffet, we’ll be fighting a losing battle against obesity.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be following the French diet at home. It’s never been easier to do so.

Since most of what I’m posting today is about what I hope to do in this space over the next few weeks, one of the items that deserves mention is my blog roll. If you look at the right hand side of this page you’ll find my list of links, which is a work in progress. Please tell me if you know of any blogs or sites about France that should be added to my list. I’m eager to learn.

In the meantime, while I put the finishing touches on the blogroll, allow me to recommend to you two or three of my favorites: The Paris Photo Journal, which is exactly as its name implies, a blog with many pictures of Paris; A Day in Paris which is full of Parisian goodness; and fianlly, La Coquette, who just makes me laugh.

All of them are worth visiting.

One of the things I’m hoping to do in the next several days is review, one by one, the many books that have come out in the past few years touting one version or another of the so-called French diet. All of these, of course, are some play on the French Paradox, the well-known phenomena by which the French eat a diet high in saturated fats yet, in general, remain thin and healthy.

Right now one of the most popular books going is French Women Don’t Get Fat, a book written by Mireille Guiliano, the C.E.O. of the French champagne maker Veuve Cliquot. (Tomorrow’s New York Times will have a long reiview of this very work.)

Of course, Guiliano’s book is only the latest, and best promoted, in a long string of French Paradox diet books, all offering one the hope that weight can be melted off on a diet of croissants and red wine. The reality, of course is different, and portion control and much walking figure heavily into the equation.

In any event, I’ll be going through these books in the next few days, trying to sort out the strong from the weak, the silly from the useful.

From the inimitable Manolo comes word that the feet of the average French woman have grown more than an inch in the past forty years.

The average French foot has grown by three centimetres in the past 40 years, and the French now buy more shoes, mostly made in Asia, than any other nation barring the United States, a new survey said.

The average shoe size for a French woman has risen from a 37 to a 40 (a seven in Britain and Australia, and a seven and half in the US), said the survey by the Centre Technique Cuir (Technical Leather Centre).

The French also now buy an average of 5.3 pairs of shoes a year, compared with 4.8 in the rest of Europe. The Americans remain the top buyers, treating themselves to 6.3 pairs of new shoes a year.

Of course, it’s no suprise here that the French are shoe shoppers. What’s more surprising to me is that Americans are the biggest shoe buyers of all. Hard to believe given the shabbiness of the shoes worn by many of the people I see on the street.

More on this subject from Jason at NYC à Paris.