The French Paradox — the idea that French people seem to eat diets high in saturated fat while avoiding diet-related diseases — is remarkably persistent in the popular imagination. It permeates books like the bestseller French Women Don’t Get Fat, and the general cultural obsession with French thinness.
Living here, I have another explanation about what’s really going on. I write it in today’s New York Times.
French people (and especially Parisians) are indeed thinner than their counterparts in other Western European countries. They do seem to appreciate good food and know how to eat. But they weren’t born gourmands or genetically skinny. As I write in the article,
France’s relatively low obesity rate and higher propensity for cooking and eating well are not accidents of history. They were carefully fostered by policy and regulation. When Americans visit Paris and marvel at how svelte people are, it’s not because the Parisians have superior willpower. They are objects of their environment, just as Americans are objects of theirs.
Put simply, the food environment here makes it easier to cook and eat healthfully. My walk home involves passing by a half-dozen fruit and vegetable stands, fishmongers, butchers, whiffs of cheese from the frommagerie, the rich, yeasty scent of the boulangerie, but also Greek, French, Moroccan, and Italian prepared food shops, with freshly cooked meals (known as “traiteur,” a word that that translates to “caterer” and describes shops selling ready-made food).
If I forget the garlic or eggs for a recipe, I can buy them within minutes. When I don’t have time to cook, there’s roast chicken, grilled fish, and sauteed green beans or fixed salads, waiting for me. The grocery stores – far less prominent here than in America – offer soups in glass bottles, organic pizza doughs, and canned ratatouille, all made with only ingredients you’d use at home.
Or there’s Picard, a French frozen food chain favored by not only the country’s top nutrition scientists but just about every Parisian I’ve ever asked (and even snobby Sylvie, Emily in Paris’ fictional boss). As the food writer David Lebovitz told me, “I’ve been in France for over 20 years and I have never once heard anyone say anything bad about Picard.”
The French still cook more than Americans — and they eat more fruits and vegetables — but what I learned in Paris is that governments at every level made it easier for them to do so by carefully cultivating the food environment. They enacted laws and policies that encourage things like healthy reformulation of industrial foods, and fresh food markets all over the country.
I detail many of the different levers France (and especially Paris) pulled in the article. But when I asked French nutrition experts what most bolstered the strong food culture, the common answer was school cantines.
Today, kids in France are supposed to be offered three to four healthy courses, low in added salt, sugar and fat, during their 1.5 hour lunch breaks at school. Paris goes further, striving to serve children mostly organic and plastic-free lunches, including fish and vegetarian meals every week.
The food appreciation, structured approach to eating, including strictly adhered to meal times, carry over into life after graduation. “A Parisian restaurant might be half-empty at 12.30pm, packed at 1pm, and half-empty again by 1.45pm,” Financial Times’ long-time Paris columnist Simon Kuper has observed. Children eat a snack after school to bridge them to dinner, but that’s usually it. One of the researchers I feature in the piece, Mathilde Touvier, recalled, with some horror, that a mid-afternoon power outage during an internship in the U.S. inspired her colleagues to order pizza – something that would not have been done back home. “The rhythm of patterns of food consumption are still respected in France,” she observed.
Like Touvier, I try to cook fresh meals for my family every day. I’m fast in the kitchen, having grown up watching my mom and grandmothers cook. I want my kids to be good cooks, too. But even in Paris, feeding them requires hours of meal planning, shopping, and cleanup each week. I would love for everybody else to be able to do the same for their families but at least for now, it’s not realistic. Our society is no longer built around families cooking all their food at home.
Not only do many people often lack the time and desire to cook, they don’t know how to any more or they don’t want to. We know from years of research on food deserts that improving access to fresh ingredients doesn’t change consumption patterns. While writing our new book, my coauthor Kevin Hall and I commissioned a survey asking a representative sample of Americans what most stopped them from eating a healthier diet. After “it’s too expensive,” the other top responses were: it’s difficult to find healthy options near me— including healthy prepared foods — and I don’t have the time or knowhow to cook.
So that’s why I think the French secret to eating well is one every city, workplace, school, and country should adopt. Improve the food environment so it’s easier for everyone to have a nutritious diet. And when you don’t have the time to cook, pick up healthy takeout or frozen dinner without shame.
A massive thank you to everyone who has read my book with Kevin Hall, and taken the time to write reviews or share it with friends. I’ve been heartened to hear your feedback — the scientist who bought 20 copies as gifts for every member of his lab, the doctor who said it will change how he practices medicine, the student who is inspired to study nutrition science, and on and on. (Online reviews really help us with the mysterious book-making algorithms, so if you feel inspired, head over to Amazon..)
I will share a few of my favorite media hits (more in the next dispatch):
I loved getting nerdy about food policy history with Derek Thompson for his Plain English podcast, which is generally a must-listen.
It was an honor to appear on the podcast of one of my food journalism heros Mark Bittman to discuss, among other things, what the food movement got wrong.
If you ever wondered about metabolism, this Gastropod episode is for you.
It was also heartwarming to talk to Vox’s Unexplanable — and specifically storytelling master Noam Hassenfeld — for another deep (and personal) metabolism dive.
The Washington Post and CNN ran fantastic interviews with Kevin.
We loved our interview with Flora Lichtman for NPR’s Science Friday.
Kevin and I wrote an oped in New Scientist on ultra-processed foods.
As a Canadian, I’m so grateful that my favorite public broadcaster, the CBC, covered our book! Check out our interviews with White Coat Black Art and The Current.
The Wall Street Journal reviewed the book and it was chosen by The Next Big Idea Club as an autumn must-read.
As always, thanks for reading and more soon.
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