healthy eating around the world

[threenorns]

http://www.thesoko.com/thesoko/article727.html

[killianr]

Very nice article!

I actually lived in the Middle East for 6 years. I think the description of the Mediterranean Cuisine in the article is not a 100% acurate for the ME though. They like their very fatty meats, and eat WAY to much dates. The nice thing there though is that you will find VERY little processed foods!

I must say, I could live on Japanese Cuisine. NO, NOT only Sushi! ;-)

Cheers

[budhicks1]

I love mediterranean food. Eat it all the time. Very healthy if you know what to choose. Like the article!

[nerval]

I'm Turkish livin' in L.A. Things said are quite truth. Seasonable, also properly cutted meat. Ocean fish and sea fish is quite different too. Replacing your corn oil with olive oil might help a lot as well.

I also guess that FDA just helps out big companies and screw up our health; instead of keepin' it healthy.

[threenorns]

<sad sigh> so new to north america and already he's discovered the bitter truth....

[CF-OC_gal]

Good article for expanding one's eating horizons but I found it weird the suggestions made for eating like the French (probably the closest to my current prefered way of eating).

They state "the French Paradox" is how do they stay slim while:

the typical French diet is laden with rich cream, butter, full-fat cheese, bread, red meat and chocolate.

Then they follow-up to recommend to eat like a European :

Go meatless for a week.
Replace margarine and butter with olive oil.
Eat fresh fruit for dessert.

Where's the "rich cream, butter, full-fat cheese, bread, red meat and chocolate" ?

They do recommend smaller portion sizes but do not point out that this is key with respect to these rich foods. When food is made sumptious from fresh real ingredients it doesn't take much to give pleasure.

There is a lot of North American attitude that comes into play too IMHO. If we all ate with an "abundance mentality" we would not gorge/binge on certain foods like they are here today and gone tomorrow.

The French community in Canadian cities I've experienced tend to save some or most of the green salad to eat last, not to be polished off before the meal. If there is room left then maybe a dessert is in order or if the meal is a family gathering then it is long and drawn out. (Mmmmm tortiere and sugar pie)

Miso is awesome!

[threenorns]

hunh - learn something new every day: i lived in a french canadian town for a decade and they never saved salad for last. i was lucky if the salad was anything other than potato or cole slaw but, yes, LOTS of tourtière, tarte au sucre, and sea-pie, lol.

[CF-OC_gal]

I married into it and have done much socializing in the FrEn business community. Pehaps it is particular to Ottawa Montreal, Quebec City.

Salad for dessert is always the joke - recognized as a common behaviour.

[threenorns]

could be - i lived in field, ontario, which is two hrs from temiscaming and they definitely have a different way of doing things up there.

ottawa, montreal, etc has a more ... cosmopolitan way of looking at things.

[CF-OC_gal]

Yup that is very true. It's also one big reason why I live within a short driving distance from the American border. I love the culture(s) down here much more!

[threenorns]

nah - not i. too homogenious.

[CF-OC_gal]

Chacun à son goût!

[threenorns]

oui, c'est vrai.

the thing i really didn't like living up there was the attitude toward "les anglais". literally, the day care centre is segregated, with french kids not allowed to play with english kids - might dilute their culture, you see <rolling eyes>. tiny town of 6000 ppl and there's six schools - french schools, english school, public schools, and catholic schools.

i seriously doubt you'd be able to understand one word in three of their french. it doesn't sound clean like the quebec french - sounds like a drunken lumberjack chewing gum. on top of that, honestly, brat: they would tell you your french is not very good ("foret", you see, is pronounced "fo-RYE", "tete" is pronounced "TYE-teh", and "moi et toi" is said "moy pee toy"; if you don't pronounce them that way, you fail the french proficiency test for StatsCan, the largest employer in town). after i took two years of conversational french to be able to speak to my husband and his kids in their language and still i couldn't understand them, i said fuggit.

[CF-OC_gal]

They speak like that in Hull too. A 15 min drive from here.
Yeah there are lots of Fr Canadian dialects. I only have trouble with the Acadian French. The Francophones from QC say the Franco Ontarians can't speak the language yadda yadda politics blah blah

Maudit! What's that got to do with the calories in a poutine eh?

[threenorns]

LOL - omg, yeah! field: six actual buildings in all of "downtown", but by god they got three chip stands!