As someone who studies French anti-Semitism, I can't help but take issue with Mireille Guiliano, author of French Women Don't Get Fat.
Now this was obviously not a diet I had picked up in America, where one could hardly say the streets are lined with irresistible patisseries... But as I was to learn, it was my adoptive American way of eating that had gone to my head and opened me up to the dangers of this delicious Parisian minefield. For in America, I had gotten into some habits: eating standing up, not making my own food, living off whatever (n'importe quoi, as the French say), as other kids were doing. Brownies and bagels were particular hazards; we had nothing quite like them at home, so who could tell how rich they were?"
Today, the French do, in fact, have bagels and brownies, just as Americans have croissants and wine, but let's leave this aside for now. How exactly is a bagel going to make anyone fat? It's low in fat, filling, and is the sort of thing that cannot be casually consumed alongside a larger meal, adding more calories to it, like, say, vin or frites. (In NYC, where bagels are perhaps most prominent, the population is actually on the thin side.) Sure, a meal consisting of delicious steak, salad, cheese, and a glass or two of wine sounds more appealing than a bagel and a skim cappuccino, I for one am fine with both (but with some French cheese on the bagel if possible), will weigh less eating the latter, and will save myself immense amounts of time. When I'm a grown-up, I hope to eat more "French" because, well, steak and salad are good, but as a college student with a limited kitchen and grocery-shopping situation, and with a physical sciences requirement to wrap up, I see no reason why a healthy, non-weight-gain-producing diet cannot include a daily bagel.
Now, while I'd be the first to admit that (some) bagels are tasty, I'm not so sure that their allure is such that an otherwise reasonable young Frenchwoman would discover them and soon find herself in a downward spiral ending in Poilane pastries (would that we all had such downward spirals). The rushed American eating habits make some Americans fat, but keep New Yorkers thin, while the slow French eating habits, not to mention the sudden additions of red meat and flan, can make New Yorkers gain weight. I'm guessing Giuliano gained weight while studying abroad in the US because: a) she probably eats when she's nervous, and studying abroad can be anxiety-provoking, b) exposure to new foods usually leads to either fear (and accompanying weight loss) or excitement (and accompanying weight gain), and c) many women gain weight in their late teens, a phenomenon known as the Freshman 15 or the preparation for bearing children, depending on how you look at things. Regardless, I just don't think there's any proof that bagels had anything to do with it.
Sunday, February 06, 2005
Don't blame bagels for your bulge
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8 comments:
besides, could a bagel be any worse for one than say, a croissant or a pain au chocolat. given one can't actually taste the butter in a bagel unless one adds it oneself, I'd say no.
The Freshman 15 has a lot more to do with girls going off to college and eating rubbish then it has to do with the child-bearing years.
I suggest the German way: drinking a lot of beer, and don't care about the rest.
I actually think the difference is in the lifestyle. Americans drive everywhere. The French, as a whole, do not. How could that NOT make a huge difference?
Whatever the difference is, it's not bagels.
Couldn't it also be genetic? In Pius II's Commentaries he notes that the Scots eat lots of meat and fish but little bread or wine. Maybe the northern Celtic and/or West African heritage of America makes us heavier than the French.
Actually there are problems with bagels.
1) Bagels have doubled in size and calories over the last 30 or 40 years. Check the calorie count. It's gone from perhaps 150-200 up over 300.
2) Bagels have lost density, so they have a lower flavor intensity than they used to. This means that you have to eat more bagel to get the same level of bagel satisfaction.
3) Eating a bagel as a meal, or as part of a meal, is one thing. Eating a bagel in addition to eating meals is another. Americans don't have meals anymore. The French still do.
Obviously, weight gain involves more than one factor, but remember that a pound of body weight is about 3500 calories. This means that 10 calories a day means 1 pound a year. That's what, a half a teaspoon of sugar a day? A 150 calorie candy bar daily could mean 15 pounds a year.
My impression is that food portions are larger and meal structure has collapsed, so people eat more. The calorie count of "I only ate one bagel" has doubled. This is worsened by the general elimination of flavor satisfaction associated with replacing sugar with corn syrup, and butter with various synthetics.
Meanwhile, American life is making it harder and harder to burn calories. It is generally illegal to put a store within walking distance of a home, so no one walks to the store anymore. If you live in a typical suburb, as do most Americans, you MUST own a car. Your children cannot play in the street, it is either too dangerous, or at least considered too dangerous. Children cannot walk down to the playground or to a friend's house.
Walking, perhaps 10 minutes a day, round trip to get a newspaper, could easily knock off a pound a year. Work the numbers.
People walk in cities. I live in a town. The kids all walk, or bike, or skateboard. Even the girls. They aren't as fat as suburban kids who don't have anywhere to walk to. You live in a city and you walk around campus, around your neighborhood, down to the bus stop, so you can afford to eat a bagel for elevensies, as the hobbits would put it.
France is very big on town life. They have less fear of living within walking distance of commercial enterprises, so they walk a lot. Even in the god awful manufactured for Algerians housing projects, there are places to walk.
In Germany they drive, and they are getting fat. (Hindenburg, the dirigible, not the politician, seems to be their role model).
Hell, even in India, the rising middle class is buying automobiles and moving out to the suburbs, so in 20 years they will have two health crises: famine and obesity.
Is it genetics? Sure, its genetics. According to the genetic code, if you consume more calories than you use, you store the rest. That's fat.
When observing French and European behaviours, the fact that walking everywhere is most common, and also that most smoke and drink large amounts of coffee, both of which surpress appetite and show increases metabolism due to their stimulant effect. The latter, of course, would never be mentioned due to the other health risks associated and that many people would likely use this as a reason to either start smoke or continue smoking as opposed to having a truly healthy lifestyle. Perhaps the French lifestyle can be taken in moderation as well, using some things of their culture as a guide, while not revering them - especially since not everything they do is as healthy as is frequently purported.
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