Since the last post, I have done my fair share of eating. And that is an understatement.
First I would like to talk about some of the food I’ve had recently.
For the first two photos, let me paint you a picture. My family and I had a very lovely driver for a day in Italy and we were driving down the coast of Italy near Nettuno and Anzio. Small fishing towns. People here basically make a living by fishing. During off season, some of the restaurants and shops are closed (we went in off season). Well, we had arrived around lunchtime. And what else would we eat beside seafood in a fishing town? It was nice restaurant and we sat down. The waitress came by and spoke Italian with our driver and basically said we pay a flat rate and get the catch of the day. LITERALLY FROM THE SAME MORNING. This is what arrived. I’m not a huge seafood person so this was pretty close to that food taboo line. I don’t like to pick and prod my meal before I can eat it.. but nonetheless I did. Oh and not pictured is the octopus I ate. No thanks.
VERY fresh seafood. Almost too fresh for my liking…
The next photo is of Italy’s olives. During our drive to Cori, Italy (where my great great grandparents are from) our driver was telling us that all the trees we were passing were olive trees. He taught us how they harvest them and said that we were there during peak harvest time. These shown below are black olives. To harvest them, they lay out a netting on the ground beneath all the trees and then go around to each tree and hand pick all the olives. When they pick them, they just let them fall to the ground and collect all the olives by using the netting.
A quote from the Food of France is pretty funny now that I have personally seen the olives. “The olive tree looks like death, but to the countries where it grows, it sometimes literally means life” (Root 327). The olive trees really aren’t that beautiful. And you can BARELY even see the olives unless you search closely. I haven’t seen any olive trees in France but I wonder if they look similar to those that are in Italy.
Olives on an Olive Tree in Italy.
Tortellini noodles with cream and ham. YUM.
Bruschetta
THE BEST tiramisu I have ever had.
Mom and Pop dinner in Rome.
A real life italian cannoli.
More pizza
RICE BALLS! A family tradition of mine is to have homemade Italian rice balls for christmas dinner. So to eat them in italy with my family was great.
Pastaaaa.
More gelato. Not kidding when I say there were days I ate gelato four times…..
Gelato in Rome with my family.
Gelato!
First Italian Pizza.
Bruschetta. The best tomatoes and olive oil soaked bread.
Prosciutto and cheese plate
My mom, aunt and grandmother got to meet me in Italy for fall break. And some of the things they said was just so funny. I felt like I was watching myself when I had first arrived in France. The european dining experience was so new for them. For example, I had to explain to them the concept of no turn around. The Italians, just like the French let you stay for as long as you’d like to fully enjoy yourself and dinner. Also, the whole check process was something they just had a hard time grasping. Waiting for the check every night was quite the process. However, something I noticed while I was there that the bread didn’t seem as good as French bread. But, the pasta was way better of course. I think I had about every cliche Italian dish while I was there and let me tell you, every single thing I ate was delicious.
Just like in France, I didn’t notice hardly any photos on the food menus while in Italy. There weren’t any outside on the windows of shops or anything. This brings me to my theme. But I will say, as good and flavorful as the food is in these amazing European countries, they do not need photos to get the point across. You can’t go wrong no matter what you order.
My observation that I haven’t seen photos on menus or even billboards for food led me to do some research on advertising. (However I have seen some ads for Mcdonald’s and Pizza Hut on the bus stop advertising windows).
Believe it or not, there are actually laws against certain advertisements and marketing in many countries around the world. Tv commercials are actually banned in Norway, Quebec, Canada and Sweden. In other countries, there is not a ban but a harsh limit on how many ads are allowed. The goal is that “regulations limit advertisements that promote unhealthy diets to children” (cspinet.org). France has even gone as far as to fine companies if they don’t use health messages within food advertisements (Mercer). The debate has sparked in Europe because of the link between junk-food and childhood obesity (Hall). Hall explains a controversial way the French planned on eliminating junk-food ads by saying, ” all junk-food ads in France must devote 7% of space to health messages about a balanced lifestyle, exercise and eating fruits and vegetables.” In France, junk-food is described as any food that is processed.
Even though France and other European countries have started to take action against this food and advertisement problem, they are not the only ones who have childhood obesity. The United States is one of the top offenders. During the year “Fed Up” was produced/released it was said that more people would die of obesity than of starvation. That is alarming. According to one study, “Fast-food restaurant meals were the most frequently advertised food products in the United States (32% of food advertisements).”
Could the crack down on food advertisements be a factor of why many French people are skinny? I have discussed before that the majority of French people are very small and skinny. You do not see many overweight people. This has been confusing for me though because of what they eat and how they live. Yes, they walk a lot but they are constantly eating bread! A lot of them smoke too, which is yet another factor as to why they are so skinny. I guess I would have to say that the factors like walking, smoking and lack of junk food ads outweighs the bread consumption hence making them a mostly skinnier population. Also, the fresh food markets I have shown in past blogs make it easy to eat healthier foods.
Once I started thinking about the bread intake I started thinking about all the butter and cheese and oils mentioned in the Food of France. I found a scholarly article discussing TFAs or Trans Fatty Acids. It said that, “the fat in milk, butter, cheese and beef approximately contains 2-9 % TFAs, whereas industrial products such as margarines and ‘‘shortenings’’ (e.g. containing partially hardened vegetable oils such as baking or frying fats) can reach over 50 % of total FAs” (Farid). THIS MAKE SENSE! Yes, the french eat bread and butter but they eat the fresh and real bread and butter. Americans tend to eat margarines and we also like to fry everything!
If the United States took a few pointers from the french we would most likely see a big decline in obesity. We need to make healthy and fresh foods more available for better prices and we need to cut down the amount of advertising we expose our children too. Our children are becoming hooked on foods before they are even old enough to work out or see a doctor for help.
Sources:
Fed Up. Dir. Stephanie Soechtig. Perf. Katie Couric, Bill Clinton, Michele Simon. 2014. Netflix.
“Food Marketing in Other Countires.” Evaluation of Agricultural Policy Reforms in the United States (2011): 119-23. Cspinet. Web. 6 Nov. 2015.
Hall, Emma. “In Europe, The Clash Over Junk-Food Ads Heats Up.” Advertising Age 78.10 (2007): 32. Small Business Reference Center. Web. 9 Nov. 2015.
Kelly, Bridget, Jason C.G. Halford, Emma J. Boyland, Kathy Chapman, Inmaculada Bautista-Castaño, Christina Berg, Margherita Caroli, Brian Cook, Janine G. Coutinho, Tobias Effertz, Evangelia Grammatikaki, Kathleen Keller, Raymond Leung, Yannis Manios, Renata Monteiro, Claire Pedley, Hillevi Prell, Kim Raine, Elisabetta Recine, Lluis Serra-Majem, Sonia Singh, and Carolyn Summerbell. “Television Food Advertising to Children: A Global Perspective.” American Journal of Public Health. American Public Health Association, n.d. Web. 09 Nov. 2015.
Menaa, Farid, et al. “Trans-Fatty Acids, Dangerous Bonds For Health? A Background Review Paper Of Their Use, Consumption, Health Implications And Regulation In France.” European Journal Of Nutrition 52.4 (2013): 1289-1302. MEDLINE. Web. 9 Nov. 2015.
Mercer, Chris. “France Tightens Food and Drink Advert Rules.” Beverage Daily. N.p., 1 Mar. 2007. Web. 6 Nov. 2015.
Root, Waverly. The Food of France . New York : Vintage Books , 1992 .