Do fruit and vegetables explain the “French Paradox”?
For years I’ve been watching with jealousy our French friends across the ocean, who indulge in meats, butter, rich pastries, full-fat cheese and other foods high in saturated fat (the classic repas français), yet are thinner and enjoy lower rates of heart disease and diabetes than us Americans. There’s been a lot of interest in the “French Paradox” and plenty of controversy about it. (Some even doubt its existence.) We’d all love to draw practical lessons from the French. Red wine was suggested as one protective food the French consume in plenty. But there are many other differences between the average American diet and the French one: the French eat smaller portions, consume less added sugar and more fish, indulge in less prepared and snack food, drink less sugary beverages and snack less between meals. All of these dietary differences may be part of the explanation of why the French have less heart disease. The bad news is that the French people aren’t as thin as they used to be. The
