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We're leaving for Europe tomorrow for three weeks to visit long time friends.
I'm going to find out this July whether French women (and Europeans in general) today still are not fat. My husband Jim and I will visit friends we met years ago when we lived and taught in Switzerland near Geneva, just on the border of France. Our hosts there live full and purposeful lives teaching, building a school in Tanzania, working an extensive vegetable and flower garden, traveling, and keeping up with their three thriving grown children. We'll see a couple in Eitzen, German, who own a farm, raise horses and other animals, and extend generous hospitality to international friends. Other friends in England include writers, journalists, expatriots. All enjoying good marriages, travel, culture, nature, meaningful work and lots of good food and wine - but they don't seem to get fat. Europe has half the health care costs of the U.S.
In general, Europeans , compared to Americans...
- spend twice as much on their food
- spend half as much on medical care
- take more time to cook and eat
- eat smaller portions, more slowly
- enjoy conversations at meals, not TV
- ban American genetically modified food
- eat less processed food
- treat their livestock better
- are more physically active
- take much more vacation
It's time I did more current "research." Follow my blog in July on www.janetluongo.com to see more details |
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