WHAT?!! no WINE?!!!
Seriously now. I think food and ingredients are different in France... and they know how to eat. They savor and enjoy their meals. Americans tend to gulp down their meals.
The main reason why the French lived so much longer while eating ‘badly’ was that they had their big meal at noon, went back to the fields to work, and worked off the food during the day, then came back and had smaller meal at night from what I understand- And the French used to at least, work long into their old age- hard physical jobs
The problems come I think when we sit around and eat badly- and have heavy larger meals at night- when we’re least active-
Whether they savor or not the foods they eat even still today would be considered the worst of the worst and yet they are living into their 90’s.
Julia Child who specialized in French cooking ate everything you are not supposed to. She lived to 92.
I know a young woman in her thirties who looked the picture of health. Ate according to today’s standards and died of cancer at 32. So what gives?
I think the dietary guidelines are largely bs.
Now I can tell you that that French generation made everything form scratch whatever it was absolutely everything. There was an emphasis on veggies mostly and fruit not as much. Meats in their day was a slaughter of a farm animal that ate either grass or slop that it was fed from natural ingredients.
They drank massive amounts of wine. Cookies and pies were all made from scratch with massive amounts of sugar.
The other element is that that generation was very very active not through exercise at the health club that did not exist but through walking mainly. A walk could last the entire day.
One thing I can tell you is that that generation was a lot happier and they all centered their lives around awesome meals. These days no one is allowed to eat anything good and everyone is miserable.