An American’s Take on the French Paradox

We ate and drank very well while we were in France. Yet neither of us gained any weight while we were on the trip. How’d we manage that? We did do a lot of walking around Paris and southern France, sure. However, I think a bigger reason was the concept of assez (enough); in other words, portion control.

You will not find all-you-can-eat buffets in France. Nor will you find cookies or macarons the size of dinner plates. Portion sizes are moderate, especially of sweets and drinks. There were a couple of restaurants that served large portions, but these places catered to tourists. Most of our meals, even the three-course menus, were assez.

So how can you duplicate the French concept of assez in the US? The ideas below aren’t original, but they may spur you to move toward controlling your calories:

• Use smaller plates and bowls for your meals. This fools your eye into thinking you’re eating more than you are.
• Fill the small plate/bowl and don’t go back for seconds.
• Crowd the plate with non-starchy vegetables or salad. These items are less calorie-dense and full of fiber.
• Limit your meat portion (if you eat meat). We may buy two strip steaks and grill them both; however, we split one at the first meal. The second one gets turned into a Thai beef salad the next night, or goes into sandwiches.
• If you need a snack, go for a small portion of something you crave and savor it. For example, take a small piece of very good chocolate and take the time to appreciate it rather than downing it in one swallow.
• Visit farmers’ markets and produce stands where you can find fruits that are of reasonable size. Most grocery stores sell apples and peaches the size of softballs, thinking that’s what their customers want. Unfortunately, some of these varieties (for example: Red Delicious apples) are bred solely for their travel or storage characteristics and are devoid of taste. These oversize fruits not only wreak havoc on calorie control, but complicate carbohydrate counting for people with diabetes.

Capucins, from our lunch near the Viaduct Millau.

This is a good example of an assez lunch. The capucins were the size of a US ice cream cone, not a foot-long sandwich. The gazpacho was maybe 12 ounces of soup. And notice that the pear juice on the right is not of “Big Gulp” size.

Eating assez rather than beaucoup is one step in solving the French Paradox, along with incorporating more activity into every day and reducing heavy snack and sweetened beverage consumption. Manger bien, mais assez. (Eat well, but enough.)