In America, we are past all those old wives tales and hocus pocus. We believe in science. We have been emancipated by the truths of biology. And we base our eating on the exact formula of nutrients necessary to keep our bodies at optimum health level. We may not all have a degree in science, but it's ok, because friendly food corporations provide informative, thirty-second televised clips instructing us on the nutritional benefits of eating only fiber, or only protein, or only bone broth, or more amino acids, or live cultures, or only polyunsaturated fats, and cutting out salt, and cholesterol, and fat, and real sugar, and bread, and... OH DEAR GOD, JUST PASS ME THOSE TWINKIES!!!
In Italy, people generally base their knowledge of what's healthy to eat on a combination of tradition and what tastes good. There is usually no distinction between a food that is good and a food that is good for you. Pizza, for example (a dirty word in the English language) is here thought to be, after all, only bread, cheese, tomatoes, and oil which, baked to a toasty crisp in a brick oven, taste like heaven itself, and all of this is GOOD. But just in case good food really isn't all that good, the Italians are helped by a pack of anecdotes and sayings handed down by their mammas, that can guide them in the selection of healthy food. Like the old saying, "peel a fig for your friends, for your enemies, a peach." The meaning being that peaches have a nutritious skin and figs don't. Then there are rules like not eating two starches in one meal and the obligation to finish the meal with a protein. And there are also food-based health remedies: got the runs? White rice time! Not digesting well? Minestra! A little stopped up in the bathroom department? Cooked fruit! Salad! Head cold? Broth! Liver trouble? Replace all butter with olive oil! All of this is the repetition of things people generally heard from their parents and grandparents, with no basis in the hard sciences.
In America, we are past all those old wives tales and hocus pocus. We believe in science. We have been emancipated by the truths of biology. And we base our eating on the exact formula of nutrients necessary to keep our bodies at optimum health level. We may not all have a degree in science, but it's ok, because friendly food corporations provide informative, thirty-second televised clips instructing us on the nutritional benefits of eating only fiber, or only protein, or only bone broth, or more amino acids, or live cultures, or only polyunsaturated fats, and cutting out salt, and cholesterol, and fat, and real sugar, and bread, and... OH DEAR GOD, JUST PASS ME THOSE TWINKIES!!!
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AuthorI'm an American living in Italy and making gross generalizations about it. Categories
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January 2021
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