I'd been living in Paris for
almost six months when one evening while my French friend and I were sharing a
cheese plate at a bar in the 18th arrondissement, I noticed her looking at me
with concern. She appeared to be taking issue with the way I was applying the
creamy Roquefort we were enjoying to the piece of bread in my hand.
"You know, you
shouldn't spread it across the whole piece of bread," she said
disapprovingly, picking up the knife and a piece of bread to illustrate her
point. "You should put the portion of cheese on the corner of the bread
and just eat that part. That way you get to enjoy the flavor of the cheese
more, and you won't be eating so much bread." It made so much sense—and I
quickly realized that I had been eating cheese the wrong way my whole life.
My friend's effective
tutelage in cheese etiquette is an example of the many French eating habits
that allow the consumption of not-so-healthy foods in healthier ways. In fact,
the year and half that I lived in France completely redefined my eating
habits—for the better. Here are some of the lessons I learned.
Eat smaller meals.
While the notion that French women never gain weight isn't
entirely true, one of the reasons they are less likely to (even with a diet
that regularly involves bread, cheese, and cream) is because they eat less food
in general. So rather than heaping their plates full of food, the French enjoy
smaller portions of everything. They also usually eat their largest meals at
lunchtime rather than dinner, which prevents them from going to bed with a full
stomach and helps ensure a better night's sleep.
Stop eating when you're full.
Rather than making sure they finish up everything on their
plate, as kids in many cultures are taught to do, most French people eat only
until they are satiated. By being more attuned to how they feel while they are
eating, they're less likely to indulge mindlessly in food. (The French aren't
the only ones to practice this healthy habit: The Japanese have a similar
concept known as hara hachi bu, meaning to eat until you're 80
percent full.) Once I made this tweak in mindset, I soon discovered that I
needed to eat far less than I thought I did in order to satisfy my stomach.
Read more
on... What Living in France Taught
Me About Healthy Eating
Author: Mikki
Brammer
