Diets vary across the world. What is considered “healthy” and “unhealthy” in Italy is not the same as what a French or Swiss person would think, but of course, as the Medical Anthropology book confirms, “all humans require roughly the same nutrients” (Wiley and Allen, 75). After eating in several different countries, I have realized that the standards change drastically as soon as you cross into new territory. After filling myself up with cheese, bread, and butter in France, pasta, pasta, and more pasta in Italy, cheese, chocolate, and sausage in Switzerland, and basically just Guinness and beef stew in Ireland, I do not want to hear that Americans are the most unhealthy in the world diet-wise anymore…
Like I have said before, I have actually eaten pretty well in my host family’s home. They cook super healthy every single day and basically only eat fresh vegetables with the occasional plate full of raw fish “cooked” with lemon juice. Safe to say that was not my favorite experience… While the three nights a week that I eat with them are really healthy, the other nights are not always so nutritious. A college student on a budget traveling through Europe for 8 months does not always have money to spend on organic vegetables and quinoa, so I eat a lot of rice and cheap bread, which is causing a huge lack of energy in my body. I have to weigh the literal costs and benefits because if I want to eat the traditional foods from different countries during my travels, I have to save money while I am not traveling. It’s (usually) worth it.
Bread on bread on bread
I am still a bit confused as to how Italian people stay healthy as far as nutrients go. Don’t get me wrong, the pasta is incredible, but eating it for every meal can’t be good for you. As we have discussed before, carbs tend to load you up with sugars, so 3 meals a day full of carbs must have some consequences. Apparently 2.75 million pounds of pasta is made in Italy per year (http://www.ilovepasta.org/public/fun-facts.) We stayed with an Italian friend and he told us that a typical day of meals in the life of an Italian begins with a croissant and orange juice for breakfast, usually a sandwich or pasta dish for lunch, and then a huge dinner with bread to start, maybe another appetizer, a huge plate of pasta (his personal favorite was carbonara which he made us for dinner… 10/10 would recommend) and a glass of wine. They also tend to throw in a salad somewhere in there, so that helps. The next few days in our next town were spent hiking and eating. The European lifestyle is much more active. I will forever be convinced that this is why they can eat pasta for every meal and still be able to climb mountains and stay skinny. While I, a 20 year old American girl, do not find this diet necessarily healthy, that does not mean it isn’t. This is where cultural differences must be taken into account. We see carb-heavy meals and run, but our Italian friend said he would “probably die” if he ate what he thought was a typical American meal. Granted he considered this to be an oversized hamburger and fries. Stereotypes are real.
Pasta for every meal
Table full of carbohydrates
Bread seems to be the staple food of all European cultures. It is kind of the unifying concept in a continent full of opposing ideas and varying cultures. French people mop their leftover food up with it after a meal, Italians make full meals out of it, the Irish drink it, and Swiss people dunk it in huge pots of vodka-drowned cheese. No matter where you are, bread is always so cheap. If a person has 1€ to spend, they can buy an entire baguette or loaf of bread and feed a few people off of that whereas if they wanted to buy a basket full of vegetables and fruit, they would need a lot more than a single euro.
In Switzerland, the same bread rules apply. Our friend who we stayed with in Zurich told us that it is not a full meal until the bread is consumed. The traditional foods of Switzerland are sausage, chocolate, cheese, and bread. People actually take breaks in the middle of their day in order to sit on the edge of the water and eat sausage with bread and mustard for two hours. I think the amount of walking that Europeans do cancels out the carbs or something. The bread we eat in Angers is a lot lighter than the bread we ate in Switzerland. The Swiss bread was dark and heavy and delicious. We had a Swiss “potluck” one night with his roommate and some friends which consisted of everyone bring bread and cheese and alcohol and making a huge pot of fondue. While the meal itself was really heavy, the portions that people ate were not.
Sausage and bread eaten by the water
Traditional chestnut flavored pastry
Traditional Swiss pretzel
From my experience, it is very rare to see an obese or overweight person walking around Europe. However, the World Health Organization European Region says differently. The statistics say that obesity/overweight effects 30-70% of people in Europe. The problem of obesity is clearly becoming a worldwide thing, and it’s starting with younger generations. I have also discovered that while the United States has a big (no pun intended) stereotype of being obese, other countries have their own health risks that pose threats to their lives just as much as obesity does. France specifically….It is basically covered in a constant layer of smoke, or at least that is what it smells like so it makes sense that one of their highest causes of death is lung cancer. The other three countries I talked about, Ireland, Switzerland, and Italy, all have cardiovascular disease as their main health risk. After my travel experiences, I think some changes in diet could really change health risks all over the world.
http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/noncommunicable-diseases/obesity/data-and-statistics
http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/country-health-profile/france
http://www.ilovepasta.org/public/fun-facts
Wiley, Andrea S., and John S. Allen. Medical Anthropology: A Biocultural Approach. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2013. Print.