Comments on: The French Paradox

By: rob

rob — Fri, 07 May 2010 00:17:07 +0000

Very amusing post, nice work
High sugar consumption will be the death of the human race!
Nothing beats natural whole foods. Get on it and get ready to feel amazing!

By: Gerald

Gerald — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 16:29:52 +0000

A very amusing post with a host of interesting comments as well. Tom, your ideas on diet sound very much in line with what Dr. Diana Schwarzbein recommends in her healthy lifestyle books (The Schwarzbein Princicple). My wife and I have just begun implementing these diet principles with great results already. It was a little difficult at first to get over our culture’s indoctrination that saturated fats are bad for your health, but it was even more difficult to reduce our sugar consumption drastically. Sugar, in some form or another, is in so many processed foods.

I’ve found some of the ideas by commenters helpful; portion control, longer meal times, family conversation, fruit platters for dessert, emphasis on quality, a more active lifestyle . . . I like them all! Thanks everyone!

By: Greg

Greg — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 01:14:22 +0000

Hi, I just wanted to ask if ALL saturated fat is healthy, or only a select few like saturated fat from breast milk and coconut oil (because of the MCFA). Because I’ve been consuming high fat, cholesterol and protein pork rinds with high sodium and only 1g of carbs. I also binged on boiled eggs and chocolate with saturated and trans fat.

So who exactly is the enemy of our heart’s health? Monounsaturated or polyunsaturated? Because I’ve been told constantly that olive oil and salmon are heart friendly, yet are mostly mono and poly. Is FatHead against high-carb diets or fat that isn’t saturated? I’m confused.

Natural fats are good for you. That would include olive oil, coconut oil, and saturated fats that come from animals, including beef fat, lard, eggs and butter. Animal fats aren’t all saturated, either. Lard, for example, is nearly half monosaturated. The saturated fats in beef tallow tend to raise HDL, which is good.

The bad oils are those that humans didn’t consume until about 100 years ago because they require industrial processing: soybean oil, corn oil, cottonseed oil, etc. Those are damaging because they oxidize easily and lead to inflammation. Trans fats are the worst of all. Avoid those whenever possible.

Inflammation drives heart disease, which is why I also recommend avoiding sugar and starch. High blood sugar inflames your arteries, and high insulin — the body’s response to high blood sugar — adds insult to injury by encouraging thickening of the arteries. Sugars and starches also encourage your body to produce the small, dense form of LDL, which can penetrate the wall of the artery. Large, fluffy LDL doesn’t do that.

By: Musings of a Housewife

Musings of a Housewife — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 03:28:37 +0000

HIGH comedy. I love this post. Just linked to it, in fact, in my last blog post on the myths about saturated fats. Keep up the good work!

My pleasure, thanks. I enjoyed your post:

http://www.musingsofahousewife.com/2009/10/embrace-the-fat.html

By: O Primitivo

O Primitivo — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:07:23 +0000

Tom, great funny post!
Terry, here are some statistics for sugar consumption per-country:

http://faostat.fao.org/site/609/DesktopDefault.aspx
http://data.un.org/Browse.aspx?d=FAO
http://www.canibaisereis.com/2009/03/21/nutrition-and-health-database/

Sorry for the delay … this one ended up in the spam folder. Thanks for the links.

By: Ben_P

Ben_P — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 06:28:27 +0000

Regarding McDougall, protein intake of 300g/day is not uncommon for bodybuilders and they’re not keeling over. Also his reason #6 is exactly the opposite for me. My digestion issues went away when I cut back on carbs. I have figured out that I have the most trouble with potatoes and pasta. Much less stinky gas with less carbs for me.

Juvenile tone and possibly NSFW plus a bodybuilding slant, but this is a decent article on the subject of protein intake:

http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance_nutrition/six_things_you_need_to_know_about_protein

This is pretty good too:

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/nutrition/protein-controversies.html

Decent articles, although I noticed the second one promotes the idea that saturated fat is bad. (I skimmed the first because it employs my least-favorite design choice: bright text on a black background. Many of us with middle-aged eyes have a hard time with that combination.)

By: Christina Stone

Christina Stone — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 21:55:22 +0000

When I was in France I didn’t see anyone eating large quanities of food. Once when I was at McDonalds I saw teenage boys with small fries and a regular hamburger leave without finishings them, and at breakfast, it didn’t seem anyone ate very much. I was shocked how thin the people were, how much they walked and biked. Its such a different lifestyle. I was the heaviest woman I think in all of France weighing in at about 155 lbs-in PA I’m about average. And everyone knew I was American-though it could have also been my complete lack of fasion sense.

By: Miki

Miki — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:46:37 +0000

This has to be a major contributor to the “paradox”:
A Baguette recipe I found on the internet:
“Make a pre-ferment and age it on the counter overnight. At the same time, put together the remaining flour and water and allow them to age overnight. The next day, put them together and proceed to make the bread.”
Industrial bread fermentation takes less than an hour. Presumably the longer fermentation allows reduction or elimination of the lectins in the wheat like gluten and WGA.

I wasn’t aware of that. Interesting.

By: ethyl d

ethyl d — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 23:56:24 +0000

I lived in France for a year back in the mid-80′s, and I remember when I came home how shocked I was when I landed at O’Hare at how fat everybody was. It’s even more noticeable when you don’t see it every day and then all of a sudden you do–and this was twenty-five years ago.

One thing I might add about how the French eat in addition to some of the other commenters’ observations is that they stretch their meals out over a longer period of time. They break at midday for a two-hour lunch, for example, and if you get invited to someone’s house for an evening or Sunday dinner, be prepared to stay for hours. During this time they eat several small courses interspersed with lots of conversation. I remember when I got back to America how bizarre it seemed to watch people heaping their plates with ginormous portions of everything in sight and having it all consumed in a few minutes. And then going back for seconds and thirds!

I do remember sections in grocery markets with soft drinks and chips, but they were small sections, not whole aisles dedicated solely to snacks and sodas. There were a few large supermarkets, but people tended to shop at small neighborhood specialty markets–here for your baguette, there for your fish, there for your meat, a stop at one of the many produce stands for fruits and vegetables, and at the patisserie if it was a special meal and one wanted a small dessert as a treat. Being an American who had never heard of low-carb, I frequented the pastry shops way too often!

I believe the more relaxed pace helps in all kinds of ways, including what Dr. Kendrick wrote about: stress is hard on your heart.

By: Xavier

Xavier — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 22:15:26 +0000

When you start scientifically counting carbs and calories, you are pretty much on the wrong idea. Even the word “carbs” sounds, to me, very UK/US. It’s not (yet) much in use in France. I think there is no real mystery: eat good food, in reasonable quantities, food you appreciate, food you prepared yourself from natural and simple ingredients. On top of that, pour some nice red wine, smoke a cigarette and have sex. I do not want to sound like Forest Gump, but my mum kept telling me: “You can have everything if it’s in a measured manner”. That probably sums up the French secret.

Still, I am pretty sure the French Paradox is already on the verge of becoming a fantasy from the past.

A Frenchman, in hope that your theory will prove true on me.

I hope it proves true as well. I’d hate to see the French follow in our footsteps on diet.