TARA BROWN: Take a deep breath and relax. Pause and enjoy the view, for this is a diet story with a difference. We're in a small village in France. It's market day, and lunch is on our mind. Now in Australia, we're always told, "Don't eat the skin of the chicken," and look at all the butter this man's putting on it.
WILLIAM PAGE: And it's it's the best part. It's the best part.
TARA BROWN: My gastronomic guide is William Page. Originally from Adelaide, this chef has lived in France for the last 13 years. He's been awarded a prestigious Michelin hat, the ultimate symbol of acceptance here. You wouldn't eat it like that, would you?
WILLIAM PAGE: You bet I would. Oh, yeah, for sure. Lots of mashed potatoes with it.
TARA BROWN: What, to soak up the butter?
WILLIAM PAGE: Mmm. Yep. Oh, that crunchy bit. That's what it's about.
TARA BROWN: As we all know, the French love to thumb their nose at convention. Here, they've made political incorrectness an art form, so for instance, if the common wisdom is butter is bad, then the French will eat more butter. They feel absolutely no guilt eating, drinking, whatever they want. It's an incredibly liberating way to live, and, infuriatingly for the rest of us who spend most of our lives concerned by what we consume, it seems to be healthy. There's hardly a fatty to be found in France, despite their high-fat diet. And this is the French paradox their incidence of heart disease is one of the lowest in the world. They have half of our rate of obesity, yet they have one of the richest diets on the planet.
MIREILLE GUILIANO: We don't like low fat, low this, sugarless this because it doesn't taste good. I mean, you know, butter is not is not something that's bad for you. Chocolate is not something that is bad for you. Eating, you know, duck fat is not bad for you, but not if you have it, of course, three times a day and the way many countries eat mega-portions.
TARA BROWN: As president of the Champagne house Verve Cliquot, Mireille Guiliano knows a thing or two about indulgence.
MIREILLE GUILIANO: The reason you don't gobble down champagne is all the drama is in the glass.
TARA BROWN: The elegant Madame Guiliano is also the author of the extremely successful book French Women Don't Get Fat. Why don't French women get fat?
MIREILLE GUILIANO: Because they eat, ah for pleasure, and they eat with their five senses.
TARA BROWN: So no counting calories?
MIREILLE GUILIANO: No, that's boring.
TARA BROWN: All too often, like in America, we judge the quality of our food by quantity, and by how quickly we get it and how fast we can eat it. But in France, it's all about quality. They even have food police patrolling cheese shops and delicatessens. Anywhere there's food, there are fines and loss of license for poor quality products.
MIREILLE GUILIANO: Cooking for us is very sensual so we take pride in what we prepare. Cooking is an act of love, you know, as opposed to many countries where cooking is a chore.
WILLIAM PAGE: It's going to be a ravioli truffle with a wild mushroom cream it's what we're going to do here.
TARA BROWN: Cream again.
WILLIAM PAGE: Yeah, well, yes and no. You just happened to fall upon this particular dish.
TARA BROWN: In the kitchen of William Page's restaurant, lunch is on the menu. It's like this every day. In France, the midday meal is rarely a grab-and-run affair. Much more, it's an affair to remember.
WILLIAM PAGE: France closes down between midday and 2:00 every day, all the businesses, all the commerce. Everything's closed so they generally go home to eat or they eat in a restaurant or whatever, yeah, but everybody eats lunch. Like a real sit-down lunch.
TARA BROWN: So not like a sandwich that we might have?
WILLIAM PAGE: Not at all.
TARA BROWN: For the French, a long lunch could well mean a long life. Taking your time is good for you. More courses mean more variety and a satisfied stomach means no snacking.
WILLIAM PAGE: I think how they eat is very healthy. I know I lost weight when I came to France.
MIREILLE GUILIANO: We eat slowly. We take the time. We put our fork and knife down between bites. Actually, what it does is that if you eat slowly and not in a stressful situation, your taste buds will be satisfied after a few bites so you don't need to eat much.
MICHEL DE LORGERIL: This is oyster and of course with butter.
TARA BROWN: And a wonderful only-in-France moment where a restaurant is this doctor's laboratory and lunch his experiment.
MICHEL DE LORGERIL: They put butter and they put cream on everything.
TARA BROWN: Cardiologist Michel de Lorgeril is one of two men who discovered the French paradox. And are snails good for you?
ICHEL DE LORGERIL: Yes, very good.
TARA BROWN: His explanation is that the bad things in the diet the saturated fats, red meat, butter and cream are cancelled out by the good things, the variety and the freshness of the food. But the key is drinking. Wine is the real lifesaver. And so every lunch time you have some wine?
MICHEL DE LORGERIL: Yes, that is typically French. We have all the time a bottle of wine open. The way of drinking of the French is chronic drinking every day, every day, and moderate drinking.
TARA BROWN: This is rare medical advice, but science has confirmed what's long been suspected. People who drink a couple of glasses of wine every day live longer than those who don't drink at all. Alcohol also protects those who've had heart attacks.
MICHEL DE LORGERIL: In our studies in patients with established coronary heart disease, two to four drinks were associated with a 50% reduction of the risk of recurrence.
TARA BROWN: So drink moderately, and you half the risk of having a second heart attack?
MICHEL DE LORGERIL: Yes, exactly. It is scientifically demonstrated.
DAVID COLQUHOUN: One or two glasses of alcohol per day, probably in most people, protects your heart, may protect against stroke, and there's evidence that it may protect against dementia. So why not tell the good news? I think it's important to tell the good news about alcohol or wine wine particularly, and a glass of beer occasionally and not be afraid to tell the truth. That's the truth.
TARA BROWN: Brisbane cardiologist David Colquhoun says Australians should pay close attention to the French way of living and eating.
DAVID COLQUHOUN: A lot of the food that you hear about is food that is, on the surface, not very healthy, but there's other things they add to the food so it's the total blend, you see. So when they have their fatty meal, a lot of the time they have cheese. Cheese, modified or fermented milk, is actually not dangerous. Grape juice, which is fermented wine, not dangerous. Positively healthy.
TARA BROWN: At this place, the menu changes every day. Today, there are two starters tomato salad, fresh vegetables, and then poached fish followed by St Paulan, a special soft cheese, followed by fruit for dessert. But to book a table here, you have to be a toddler. At this creche, like most in France, lunch is four courses. But this being France, it's much more than just about the eating. It's also about educating the palate.
DAVID COLQUHOUN: Certainly it's the lifestyle. It's not the genes. It's not genetics, and we've seen that in one study after another that culture is very important and a big part of culture is what you eat.
TARA BROWN: While the French thrive on ignoring dietary convention, our fixation with it grows.
DAVID COLQUHOUN: The Zone diet, the Calloway diet, the orgasmic diet, the Hawaiian diet, don't diet, Eskimo. It goes on and on and on.
TARA BROWN: And what's the craziest diet you've heard of?
DAVID COLQUHOUN: The craziest diet is the hallelujah diet, actually.
TARA BROWN: The Australian paradox is the greater our obsession with losing weight, the more we pile on.
DAVID COLQUHOUN: Portion sizes are getting bigger, and we're all tuned to eating every what's on our plate, you know. This is, you've got to eat what's on your plate. As portions get bigger, people eat more. And we're just over-consuming. That's it. The key thing about eating is to enjoy what you're eating, but when you've eaten enough, don't eat anymore. Be satisfied. That's the key thing and don't snack.
TARA BROWN: Okay, I won't. Do you ever snack?
MIREILLE GUILIANO: Rarely because again, when you have your three meals, you really don't have reasons to snack.
TARA BROWN: Do you ever drink soft drinks?
MIREILLE GUILIANO: No.
TARA BROWN: Never?
MIREILLE GUILIANO: No, not good all this sugar, and it's not appealing for me. Basically, I have coffee or tea or water and wine.
TARA BROWN: While something sweet is always on Mireille's menu, it never makes it to her hips. Not only do French women not get fat, they don't even break into a sweat.
MIREILLE GUILIANO: French women don't jog. It's very bad for your joints. You know, we'd rather do things that give us pleasure, and walking gives us great pleasure.
TARA BROWN: Is there a French word for guilt? Does it exist?
IREILLE GUILIANO: No, actually, I mention in the book... You know, sometimes I go to a restaurant in New York or in America, and I order a dessert, and the waiter would come and say, "Oh, this is sinfully delicious." And to me, why is this sinfully? I mean, you know, it's a dessert. And I don't have it every day, and why should it be sinful? It's just very delicious. (Laughs)
TARA BROWN: Back in Australia, David Colquhoun is doing a long-term study on the effects of diet on heart patients. He prefers a variation to the French paradox the Mediterranean diet. Replace the butter and red meats with olive oil and fish, but keep the daily wine. His patients are losing up to 8kg a year. And is it protecting them from further heart attacks?
DAVID COLQUHOUN: Well, the evidence from two big trials is that heart attacks may be reduced by more than 50 percent simply by modifying the diet. Very simple.
TARA BROWN: The French are considered the most pleasure-driven people on earth. So even if we don't like their rich food, perhaps we can learn from their attitude. C'est la vie. Stop the diet obsession, concentrate on commonsense, and quite literally, eat to your heart's content. Is obsession the reason why so much of the world is now battling the bulge?
MIREILLE GUILIANO: Oh, I think so, yes. And the result is that your body takes revenge, and then people binge. I mean, it's that simple. Whereas if you have it a few times a week or you choose your moment to have it, and you eat slowly and you have less, well, you can have your cake and eat it too.
WILLIAM PAGE: And it's it's the best part. It's the best part.
TARA BROWN: My gastronomic guide is William Page. Originally from Adelaide, this chef has lived in France for the last 13 years. He's been awarded a prestigious Michelin hat, the ultimate symbol of acceptance here. You wouldn't eat it like that, would you?
WILLIAM PAGE: You bet I would. Oh, yeah, for sure. Lots of mashed potatoes with it.
TARA BROWN: What, to soak up the butter?
WILLIAM PAGE: Mmm. Yep. Oh, that crunchy bit. That's what it's about.
TARA BROWN: As we all know, the French love to thumb their nose at convention. Here, they've made political incorrectness an art form, so for instance, if the common wisdom is butter is bad, then the French will eat more butter. They feel absolutely no guilt eating, drinking, whatever they want. It's an incredibly liberating way to live, and, infuriatingly for the rest of us who spend most of our lives concerned by what we consume, it seems to be healthy. There's hardly a fatty to be found in France, despite their high-fat diet. And this is the French paradox their incidence of heart disease is one of the lowest in the world. They have half of our rate of obesity, yet they have one of the richest diets on the planet.
MIREILLE GUILIANO: We don't like low fat, low this, sugarless this because it doesn't taste good. I mean, you know, butter is not is not something that's bad for you. Chocolate is not something that is bad for you. Eating, you know, duck fat is not bad for you, but not if you have it, of course, three times a day and the way many countries eat mega-portions.
TARA BROWN: As president of the Champagne house Verve Cliquot, Mireille Guiliano knows a thing or two about indulgence.
MIREILLE GUILIANO: The reason you don't gobble down champagne is all the drama is in the glass.
TARA BROWN: The elegant Madame Guiliano is also the author of the extremely successful book French Women Don't Get Fat. Why don't French women get fat?
MIREILLE GUILIANO: Because they eat, ah for pleasure, and they eat with their five senses.
TARA BROWN: So no counting calories?
MIREILLE GUILIANO: No, that's boring.
TARA BROWN: All too often, like in America, we judge the quality of our food by quantity, and by how quickly we get it and how fast we can eat it. But in France, it's all about quality. They even have food police patrolling cheese shops and delicatessens. Anywhere there's food, there are fines and loss of license for poor quality products.
MIREILLE GUILIANO: Cooking for us is very sensual so we take pride in what we prepare. Cooking is an act of love, you know, as opposed to many countries where cooking is a chore.
WILLIAM PAGE: It's going to be a ravioli truffle with a wild mushroom cream it's what we're going to do here.
TARA BROWN: Cream again.
WILLIAM PAGE: Yeah, well, yes and no. You just happened to fall upon this particular dish.
TARA BROWN: In the kitchen of William Page's restaurant, lunch is on the menu. It's like this every day. In France, the midday meal is rarely a grab-and-run affair. Much more, it's an affair to remember.
WILLIAM PAGE: France closes down between midday and 2:00 every day, all the businesses, all the commerce. Everything's closed so they generally go home to eat or they eat in a restaurant or whatever, yeah, but everybody eats lunch. Like a real sit-down lunch.
TARA BROWN: So not like a sandwich that we might have?
WILLIAM PAGE: Not at all.
TARA BROWN: For the French, a long lunch could well mean a long life. Taking your time is good for you. More courses mean more variety and a satisfied stomach means no snacking.
WILLIAM PAGE: I think how they eat is very healthy. I know I lost weight when I came to France.
MIREILLE GUILIANO: We eat slowly. We take the time. We put our fork and knife down between bites. Actually, what it does is that if you eat slowly and not in a stressful situation, your taste buds will be satisfied after a few bites so you don't need to eat much.
MICHEL DE LORGERIL: This is oyster and of course with butter.
TARA BROWN: And a wonderful only-in-France moment where a restaurant is this doctor's laboratory and lunch his experiment.
MICHEL DE LORGERIL: They put butter and they put cream on everything.
TARA BROWN: Cardiologist Michel de Lorgeril is one of two men who discovered the French paradox. And are snails good for you?
ICHEL DE LORGERIL: Yes, very good.
TARA BROWN: His explanation is that the bad things in the diet the saturated fats, red meat, butter and cream are cancelled out by the good things, the variety and the freshness of the food. But the key is drinking. Wine is the real lifesaver. And so every lunch time you have some wine?
MICHEL DE LORGERIL: Yes, that is typically French. We have all the time a bottle of wine open. The way of drinking of the French is chronic drinking every day, every day, and moderate drinking.
TARA BROWN: This is rare medical advice, but science has confirmed what's long been suspected. People who drink a couple of glasses of wine every day live longer than those who don't drink at all. Alcohol also protects those who've had heart attacks.
MICHEL DE LORGERIL: In our studies in patients with established coronary heart disease, two to four drinks were associated with a 50% reduction of the risk of recurrence.
TARA BROWN: So drink moderately, and you half the risk of having a second heart attack?
MICHEL DE LORGERIL: Yes, exactly. It is scientifically demonstrated.
DAVID COLQUHOUN: One or two glasses of alcohol per day, probably in most people, protects your heart, may protect against stroke, and there's evidence that it may protect against dementia. So why not tell the good news? I think it's important to tell the good news about alcohol or wine wine particularly, and a glass of beer occasionally and not be afraid to tell the truth. That's the truth.
TARA BROWN: Brisbane cardiologist David Colquhoun says Australians should pay close attention to the French way of living and eating.
DAVID COLQUHOUN: A lot of the food that you hear about is food that is, on the surface, not very healthy, but there's other things they add to the food so it's the total blend, you see. So when they have their fatty meal, a lot of the time they have cheese. Cheese, modified or fermented milk, is actually not dangerous. Grape juice, which is fermented wine, not dangerous. Positively healthy.
TARA BROWN: At this place, the menu changes every day. Today, there are two starters tomato salad, fresh vegetables, and then poached fish followed by St Paulan, a special soft cheese, followed by fruit for dessert. But to book a table here, you have to be a toddler. At this creche, like most in France, lunch is four courses. But this being France, it's much more than just about the eating. It's also about educating the palate.
DAVID COLQUHOUN: Certainly it's the lifestyle. It's not the genes. It's not genetics, and we've seen that in one study after another that culture is very important and a big part of culture is what you eat.
TARA BROWN: While the French thrive on ignoring dietary convention, our fixation with it grows.
DAVID COLQUHOUN: The Zone diet, the Calloway diet, the orgasmic diet, the Hawaiian diet, don't diet, Eskimo. It goes on and on and on.
TARA BROWN: And what's the craziest diet you've heard of?
DAVID COLQUHOUN: The craziest diet is the hallelujah diet, actually.
TARA BROWN: The Australian paradox is the greater our obsession with losing weight, the more we pile on.
DAVID COLQUHOUN: Portion sizes are getting bigger, and we're all tuned to eating every what's on our plate, you know. This is, you've got to eat what's on your plate. As portions get bigger, people eat more. And we're just over-consuming. That's it. The key thing about eating is to enjoy what you're eating, but when you've eaten enough, don't eat anymore. Be satisfied. That's the key thing and don't snack.
TARA BROWN: Okay, I won't. Do you ever snack?
MIREILLE GUILIANO: Rarely because again, when you have your three meals, you really don't have reasons to snack.
TARA BROWN: Do you ever drink soft drinks?
MIREILLE GUILIANO: No.
TARA BROWN: Never?
MIREILLE GUILIANO: No, not good all this sugar, and it's not appealing for me. Basically, I have coffee or tea or water and wine.
TARA BROWN: While something sweet is always on Mireille's menu, it never makes it to her hips. Not only do French women not get fat, they don't even break into a sweat.
MIREILLE GUILIANO: French women don't jog. It's very bad for your joints. You know, we'd rather do things that give us pleasure, and walking gives us great pleasure.
TARA BROWN: Is there a French word for guilt? Does it exist?
IREILLE GUILIANO: No, actually, I mention in the book... You know, sometimes I go to a restaurant in New York or in America, and I order a dessert, and the waiter would come and say, "Oh, this is sinfully delicious." And to me, why is this sinfully? I mean, you know, it's a dessert. And I don't have it every day, and why should it be sinful? It's just very delicious. (Laughs)
TARA BROWN: Back in Australia, David Colquhoun is doing a long-term study on the effects of diet on heart patients. He prefers a variation to the French paradox the Mediterranean diet. Replace the butter and red meats with olive oil and fish, but keep the daily wine. His patients are losing up to 8kg a year. And is it protecting them from further heart attacks?
DAVID COLQUHOUN: Well, the evidence from two big trials is that heart attacks may be reduced by more than 50 percent simply by modifying the diet. Very simple.
TARA BROWN: The French are considered the most pleasure-driven people on earth. So even if we don't like their rich food, perhaps we can learn from their attitude. C'est la vie. Stop the diet obsession, concentrate on commonsense, and quite literally, eat to your heart's content. Is obsession the reason why so much of the world is now battling the bulge?
MIREILLE GUILIANO: Oh, I think so, yes. And the result is that your body takes revenge, and then people binge. I mean, it's that simple. Whereas if you have it a few times a week or you choose your moment to have it, and you eat slowly and you have less, well, you can have your cake and eat it too.