The food and the eating habits are definitely different between the United States and France.
One of the biggest things I’ve noticed differently between the two cultures is that the French people in general take their time to eat their meals. In addition to eating the meals slowly, there’s a high preference to eat it with people like family or friends; never alone. There’s no such thing as fast food and drive thru here in France. Taking between 1 to 2 hours to eat your meals is beneficial for your health. I’ve noticed for the past month that I’ve lived with my host family and eaten long dinners that I don’t feel full and heavy after eating dinner. I feel that eating small portion of courses throughout the long hours of dinner makes me feel satisfied.
Here in France the first course of food that my host mom prepares me always consists of soup.
The second course is salad which unlike the United States does not include a lot of lettuce with tomato onions croutons and ranch dressing. The French salad is usually a full tomato cut in half with mustard and peas. There are also times where she will cut an avocado in half and served it with ham, mustard and olives. The ham is used much by my host mom and it will usually be like the jabon de volaille mentioned in Food of France. “The word jambon (ham) is misleading for the name is given by analogy to cold boned stuffed chicken legs cooked in wine and later eaten cold.” (p.44). I’ve noticed mustard and peas are popular in French foods. Overall the salad course will consist of a good amount of vegetables.
After the second course, the main course consists of either chicken or meat or rice mixed with vegetables and meat. My host mom has put white wine on some of the meat to give it flavor. The meats come from many animals such as cows, duck, turkey, goat, pig etc. One of my favorite meats is rillons and rillauds which is mentioned in the “Food of France” book. “Rillettes is perhaps the most famous of these products so far as the Touraine is concerned, together with its variants, rillons and rillauds”.(p.44). The rillauds are a specifically from the region of Anjou.
Potato with chicken
veal with potatoes
And after this course is the dessert. It varies from yogurt to pudding, to ice cream and even bread with Cognac brandy on it.
yogurt (no sugar) and jam
Back home in the United States my dinners will be shorter than an hour. My mom will serve us a big full plate of food and I will be inclined to eat it all fast. There will be small talk at the dinner table but most of the time there was an urgency to finish fast in order to take on the next task of the night. The French, to my view, don’t have this urgency to finish fast. I remember one night that I lasted 2 and a half hours eating dinner with my host family that all I was thinking near the end was that I needed to do homework right after we all finished.
One of the other big differences is that most French families have their own gardens. I know my mom has a grape vine and a garden of vegetables. She makes a lot of soups and dishes using vegetables from these gardens. My host mom also does not like putting salt on food. One time she made me rice with peas and tomato and it had no salt on it therefore it tasted flavorless. I noticed that French in general don’t consume a lot of salt. The French McDonald’s fries were not salty at all and I usually like how back in the United States the McDonald’s fries contain a lot of salt. That is the best part of the fries in my opinion. I also noticed that many advertisements of food in French commercials say at the bottom, “Pour votre sante, pas de sel, pas de sucre”
In continuing with my theme of meat consumption, the French consume meats such as sausages and meats from animals like goats. Meat consumption has both positive and negative health consequences. One of the positives is that meat is a great source of protein, iron, zinc, Vitamin B and A. The negative ones is that it has high content of cholesterol and fatty acids. It has also shown to attribute to deaths.
Results from the European Prospective Investigation show that a high consumption of red meat was related to higher all cause mortality and the association was stronger for red meat.
They estimated that “3.3% of deaths could be prevented if all participants had a processed meat consumption of less than 20g/day.” (Rohrmann, 2013). The types of deaths associated with processed meat consumption were cardiovascular diseases and cancer.
In a study done on French women alone it was found that processed meat was significantly associated with incident diabetes. Specifically type 2 diabetes (Lajous). Unprocessed red meat was not associated with diabetes. Another study had findings that indicate that processed red meat, but not unprocessed red meat, consumption is associated with an increased risk of heart failure incidence.(Kaluza)
Additionally, in the United States, meat consumption has contributed to foodborne illnesses. Poultry has the highest per serving risk of Salmonella, followed by pork. For E. coli, beef has the highest per serving risk, followed by lamb.(Hsi)
The making of meat has endangered livestock and caused damage to the environment. Livestock production is also related to climate change. The Global Environment Change recommends cutting in half the consumption of red meat and dairy products for the wellness of the health and environment. “Halving meat and dairy lowers saturated fat intake to the maximum recommended level. Lower livestock production lead to 25-40% lower greenhouse gas emissions. ” (Westhoek)
Moreover , the 40% reduction on saturated fat will lead to a reduction in cardiovascular mortality.
In France, the consumption of undercooked pork meat has been responsible for the contamination of hepatitis E virus (Deest) . Contamination may occur from an animal reservoir.
I notice French people do eat a lot of meat like I do in Texas. I think my host mom has cooked one of these sausages three times a month already. Note: the food is not the best looking. Most French food in my opinion does not look good but it tastes good! Such as the lentils. Another day my host mom made goat meat. It tasted so much like the meat Mexicans use to make tacos. I told my host mom that with tortillas the plate will be a Mexican dish and she told me she’ll buy tortillas the next day.
It has been found that “Reduced meat consumption is taking place in a limited set of high-income countries.” (Mathijs) The diversity in meat consumption patterns is very high. It is projected that there will be a slowdown in meat demand.
From reading all the articles on France and meat consumptions, it seems like the French do thorough evaluations of any meat that is suspected of being contaminated. Especially of meat imported from other countries (Aroussi). However, an article that measures attitudes towards beef and vegetarians in Argentina, Brazil, France and the U.S., it was found that in ranking the most pro-beef countries were Argentina and France. It was also found that France in general is unsympathetic to vegetarians. French public school require lunches to contain animal products, with a minimum of 20% of meals containing meat and 20% containing fish, and the remainder containing egg and cheese.(Ruby). Women in all countries in general are more likely to be vegetarians then men. Although these findings were focused on the United States overall, I hope to find more information on meat consumption in Texas specifically.
Citations:
Aroussi, Abdelkrim, et al. “Detection Of Toxoplasma Gondii DNA In Horse Meat From Supermarkets In France And Performance Evaluation Of Two Serological Tests.” Parasite (1252607X) (2015): 1. Supplemental Index. Web. 19 Oct. 2015.
Deest, Guillaume, et al. “[Autochthonous Hepatitis E In France And Consumption Of Raw Pig Meat].”Gastroentérologie Clinique Et Biologique 31.12 (2007): 1095-1097. MEDLINE. Web. 19 Oct. 2015
Hsi, David J., et al. “Comparing Foodborne Illness Risks Among Meat Commodities In The United States.” Food Control 54.(2015): 353-359. ScienceDirect. Web. 22 Oct. 2015.
Kaluza, Joanna, Agneta Åkesson, and Alicja Wolk. “Long-Term Processed And Unprocessed Red Meat Consumption And Risk Of Heart Failure: A Prospective Cohort Study Of Women.” International Journal Of Cardiology 193.(2015): 42-46. Academic Search Complete. Web. 22 Oct. 2015.
Lajous, Martin, et al. “Processed And Unprocessed Red Meat Consumption And Incident Type 2 Diabetes Among French Women.” Diabetes Care 35.1 (2012): 128-130. MEDLINE. Web. 19 Oct. 2015.
Mathijs, Erik. “Exploring Future Patterns Of Meat Consumption.” Meat Science 109.61st International Congress of Meat science and Technology (61st ICoMST), 23-28 August 2015, Clermont Ferrand, France (2015): 112-116. ScienceDirect. Web. 19 Oct. 2015.
Rohrmann et al. “Meat Consumption and Mortality – Results from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition.” BMC Medicine 11.1 (2013): 1-12. Academic Search Complete. Web. 17 Oct. 2015.
Ruby, Matthew B., et al. “Attitudes Toward Beef And Vegetarians In Argentina, Brazil, France, And The USA.” Appetite (2015): ScienceDirect. Web. 22 Oct. 2015.
Root, Waverley. The Food of France. New York: Vintage, 1992. Print.
Westhoek, “Food Choices, Health and Environment: Effects of Cutting Europe’s Meat and Dairy Intake.” Global Environmental Change 26 (2014): 196-205. Edselp. Web. 17 Oct. 2015.