John Darkin: Gallic diet reveals key to staying slim

There is a lot of muttering about the population being overweight, obese and at risk of heart disease and diabetes. The evidence is not hard to find.

Is obesity among the wealthy caused by their gorging unhindered by cost, and among the poor by feeding too often on convenience takeaways? Should we be looking overseas for good examples of balanced and healthy eating habits?

We might wonder why, with a few notable exceptions, people outside New Zealand are on the whole thinner than us.

This is especially true in France, where I lived for a number of years and rarely came across an overweight person.

The population seem content with their traditional wide-ranging diet, even though an ambitious fast-food industry strongly targets the young. Snacking between meals is rare.

The French attitude to food and diet is to be commended.

The obesity rate among overweight adults in New Zealand is about 17 per cent, but in France it is only 7 per cent. Health statistics tell us New Zealand and Britain suffer more than 200 deaths per 100,000 from heart disease each year, but France has only 83.

Cynics have said that French slimness is due to smoking, but my observation suggested their secret lies in eating small amounts of healthy, quality food, rather than unhealthy quantities of fattening items.

Most of us imagine frogs' legs and snails when we think of French food and screw up our faces in disgust. Both, however, are nutritious and non-fattening, and the latter can be brought to the table free. But today, these foods are mostly reserved for special occasions.

One such occasion was when my neighbour gave a dinner party at which we "rosbifs" were to be tested on our tolerance of French cuisine, especially snails. I had seen the children collecting them from grass verges after rain, so was forewarned. Les petits gris had to be well purged before cooking and eating.

At the appropriate moment I was invited to "servez-vous" to escargot farcis - snails stuffed with mushrooms, parsley, shallots and garlic. They were delicious, and to the dismay of my friends, I tucked into them with gusto, taking rather more than was polite.

However, more importantly for my long-term health prospects, even after an eight-course dinner I left the table without that stuffed feeling.

In the past, most people were slim. Over the past 40 years, however, rich Western populations have become fatter. Except in France, where the Gallic obsession for slimness persists; and it cannot all be down to snails. How do they do it?

The French main meal of the day may consist of four to six small courses, using fresh ingredients when in season.

A typical lunch or dinner will contain soup followed by vegetables ahead of a lean meat dish; then cheese and a crisp salad before a simple dessert.

The meal will contain fewer calories than our fare, and for preference be eaten at lunchtime, leaving longer for digestion.

Portion sizes in New Zealand are famously large. Never let it be said that one leaves a table, pie shop or cafe, hungry. Our daily grazing habit includes the enormous morning muffin, and ice-creams half the size of a house brick.

Although we specialise in giant helpings, don't let size be confused with good value. The size just makes us fat.

Worse is that in today's quick-fix world, many of us too often visit burger joints instead of preparing food in our own kitchens. For those of us less prone to taking exercise, a trip to the drive-in means we don't even have to move out from behind the steering wheel to feed.

New Zealand produces the finest raw materials, but we eat unsophisticated processed foods in abundance - piles of fatty burgers, chips, crisps, ice-cream, cakes, biscuits, ghastly puddings, and assorted junk foods.

For the French, including the poor, manufactured food is a last resort.

In the face of increasing numbers of burger outlets, the French Government is behind moves to ensure young people do not forget the traditional cuisine.

Teams of prominent chefs and food specialists visit schools to demonstrate the how and why of cooking and the merits of eating at home; and the benefits to health of the established French diet.

These positive moves also encourage families to eat together. The food is savoured, not wolfed down before racing off to another activity.

One 12-year-old boy I knew needed no encouragement.

Before school each morning, he asked his mother what she would be preparing for lunch, how she would cook it and what herbs she would use. His questions may seem un-small-boyish to us, but are an example of the interest a young French person takes in what he eats.

Once described as "irrelevant old Europe", France is, nevertheless, pointing the way to better health. While we crawl at snails' pace to crack obesity, they have leap-frogged over the burger threat in the interests of their citizens' health. That's relevant.

* John Darkin is a Gisborne writer.