Okay,
Iv'e been living in France now for almost 8yrs now and and thought before I moved here, I had a pretty good idea what the french eat as most of you probably think. Cheese, charcuterie, wine, loads of red meat, offal, bread and pattiserie. So why aren't they fat? I think the main reason is they all eat the main meal of the day at midday. They then go back to work in the afternoon and burn it off, they are also very active even into old age. One old boy who lives near me is 91 and he bikes to the village 8kms round trip on a racing bike. The heart attack figures are much lower and life expectancy is higher than the UK. I has to be said they eat lots of fish and salad and vegetables too. So, basically a good balanced diet. Most people don't buy processed food either. In the supermarket where I live they have an "English isle" the french wouldn't recognise most of it as food i.e. bisto, custard powder, Marmite. There's an English shop here too that sells stuff like english cotton wool bread, spaghetti hoops, baked beans and spam. It's not untill I'd been here for a while I realised how over processed British food is. In France they are much closer to the land and know where their food comes from and only buy local produce or grow their own. My neighbour always has a couple of pigs. another has a few hives and many have chickens, ducks, geese, guinea foul, turkeys you name it. What I actually find is everyone here is an "Accidental Smallholder" it is very much the norn