First came the Times, with a story headlined CAN FOIE GRAS AID THE HEART? A FRENCH SCIENTIST SAYS YES. Ariane Daguin is the co-owner of D’Artagnan, a New Jersey company producing fresh foie gras-the fattened livers of ducks and geese. “After that story, a whole bunch of chefs called and said they never sold so much foie gras in their lives,” she says. “By Christmas it was completely crazy. We had eight phone lines, we had to put in four more.”
Then came “60 Minutes.” Seated in a restaurant in Lyons, France, Morley Safer exclaimed over the pate, the sausage and the wine-a diet, he told viewers, that breaks all our nutritional rules but gives France a much lower rate of heart disease than America. He proclaimed the secret to be wine. During the next four weeks, supermarket sales of red wine jumped 44 percent; sales at liquor stores surged, too. The wine industry, in the doldrums for years, quickly began circulating copies of the “60 Minutes” transcript, and Food and Wines from France, a promotional organization based in New York, placed a full-page ad in several major newspapers urging Americans to drink more French wine and enjoy a “longer, happier, healthier life.”
Alas, all the excitement overlooked a few important but inconvenient facts. The French may be happier than other people, but they don’t live much longer, and apart from heart disease they aren’t much healthier. Life expectancy is only about a year more in France than in the United States. Diseases associated with alcohol abuse are more common there, and although the overall incidence of cancer is comparable to ours, the rate is rising faster. As for the high-fat diet that had Safer marveling, it’s no higher in fat than ours. The French take in approximately the same number of calories as we do, and about the same percentage of calories are derived from fat-37 to 40 percent. (Most nutritionists believe no more than 30 percent of calories should come from fat.) It’s true that given a fatty diet and lots of smokers, one would expect to see a high rate of heart disease in France; instead, the death rate from heart disease among middle-aged men is only about half that of Americans. But heart disease is the No. 1 killer in both countries. Middle-aged Frenchmen die most frequently from cancer, especially of the lung.
You can’t blame Americans for perking up at the notion of foie gras and wine as medicinal marvels; the news is definitely enticing. Serge Renaud, director of research at the National Institute of Health and Medical Research in Lyons, says the chemical composition of duck and goose fat resembles that of olive oil, which does not raise cholesterol. As for wine, researchers in several countries have believed for years that the moderate consumption of wine (possibly alcohol in general) protects against heart disease. Numerous studies have shown that people who take one or two drinks a day live longer than either teetotalers or heavy drinkers, and although many of these studies have been criticized for flaws in method, laboratory evidence backs them up. Alcohol can raise HDL, the “good” cholesterol, and may also have a beneficial effect on the heart by making the platelets-blood cells that cling to the artery walls-less sticky. Hence they’re less likely to promote clogged arteries.
But the paradox is a bit more tangled than this evidence suggests. Apart from the inhabitants of Gascony, the foie gras capital where people traditionally cook with duck and goose fat, most of the French cannot attribute their healthy hearts to foie gras-it’s eaten in small portions and only on special occasions. More important, not all French people drink wine. In 1980 about a third of the French drank no wine; today it’s up to half. A mere 10 percent of the women and 28 percent of the men say they drink wine every day. (They’re still way ahead of us-only 13 percent of Americans drink wine at least once a week.) It may take another decade or two before the results of this change show up in health statistics, but significant numbers of French people seem to be fending off heart disease without the benefits of wine. Maybe it’s the food. After all, everyone eats. And while the French and American diets may be similar in terms of caloric intake, the French put their calories to better use. On average they consume almost five servings of fresh fruits and vegetables a day, compared with about three here; they also eat more grains-and all these foods are rich in antioxidants substances that help the body fight cancer and heart disease. They eat more butter and cheese, but Americans eat more red meat, drink more milk and take in far more empty calories in the form of sugar.
Despite their high-fat diet, moreover, the French manage to stay slim–unlike Americans. Researchers believe that traditional eating patterns are responsible: the French eat three meals a day and they don’t snack. “Here we spend more time at the table,” says Muriel Bellanger, a family counselor in the Loire valley who has lived in the United States. “Over there you eat a burger, then an hour later you are hungry and eat again. Even the automobiles have everything necessary to hold your soda can and popcorn. "
For Americans, the practical implications of the paradox are confusing. The danger of overdosing on foie gras seems slight, but should public policy now focus on the health benefits of wine? “Alcoholics are not a race apart,” says Dr. Michel Craplet of the Paris-based National Association for the Prevention of Alcoholism. “To say drinking two or three glasses is OK will ultimately encourage alcoholism. " Even Dr. Curtis Ellison, a specialist in preventive medicine at the Boston University School of Medicine who is convinced that wine has beneficial effects on the heart, doesn’t endorse such promotional measures as the Food and Wines from France ad. Some research, he says, has come up with a possible association between alcohol and breast cancer. “Our policy should be, let’s get the facts.”
But if prescribing wine as if it were medicine is premature, a dose of good, well-cooked food-to be taken three times a day at a leisurely pace-might do wonders for our hearts, even our figures. Consider a typical lunch served to the children at the Impasse Emelie preschool in Paris recently: the tots dined on corn and beet salad, veal cordon bleu with ratatouille and potatoes, brie and an orange. Maybe they won’t live much longer than their American counterparts growing up on pizza and Kool-Aid. But what a life.
Ounces of Prevention? The French drink 10 times as much wine as Americans. Some say they’re doing their hearts a favor. But their higher cancer-death rate shows it isn’t quite that simple. U.S. FRANCE Yearly wine consumption 2.11 19.05 per person, in gallons Deaths from heart disease 315 174 per 100,000 men, ages 35-64 Deaths from cancer 166.3 254 per 100,000 men, ages 45-54
title: “Eat Drink And Be Wary” ShowToc: true date: “2023-02-01” author: “John Gonzalez”
First came the Times, with a story headlined CAN FOIE GRAS AID THE HEART? A FRENCH SCIENTIST SAYS YES. Ariane Daguin is the co-owner of D’Artagnan, a New Jersey company producing fresh foie gras-the fattened livers of ducks and geese. “After that story, a whole bunch of chefs called and said they never sold so much foie gras in their lives,” she says. “By Christmas it was completely crazy. We had eight phone lines, we had to put in four more.”
Then came “60 Minutes.” Seated in a restaurant in Lyons, France, Morley Safer exclaimed over the pate, the sausage and the wine-a diet, he told viewers, that breaks all our nutritional rules but gives France a much lower rate of heart disease than America. He proclaimed the secret to be wine. During the next four weeks, supermarket sales of red wine jumped 44 percent; sales at liquor stores surged, too. The wine industry, in the doldrums for years, quickly began circulating copies of the “60 Minutes” transcript, and Food and Wines from France, a promotional organization based in New York, placed a full-page ad in several major newspapers urging Americans to drink more French wine and enjoy a “longer, happier, healthier life.”
Alas, all the excitement overlooked a few important but inconvenient facts. The French may be happier than other people, but they don’t live much longer, and apart from heart disease they aren’t much healthier. Life expectancy is only about a year more in France than in the United States. Diseases associated with alcohol abuse are more common there, and although the overall incidence of cancer is comparable to ours, the rate is rising faster. As for the high-fat diet that had Safer marveling, it’s no higher in fat than ours. The French take in approximately the same number of calories as we do, and about the same percentage of calories are derived from fat-37 to 40 percent. (Most nutritionists believe no more than 30 percent of calories should come from fat.) It’s true that given a fatty diet and lots of smokers, one would expect to see a high rate of heart disease in France; instead, the death rate from heart disease among middle-aged men is only about half that of Americans. But heart disease is the No. 1 killer in both countries. Middle-aged Frenchmen die most frequently from cancer, especially of the lung.
You can’t blame Americans for perking up at the notion of foie gras and wine as medicinal marvels; the news is definitely enticing. Serge Renaud, director of research at the National Institute of Health and Medical Research in Lyons, says the chemical composition of duck and goose fat resembles that of olive oil, which does not raise cholesterol. As for wine, researchers in several countries have believed for years that the moderate consumption of wine (possibly alcohol in general) protects against heart disease. Numerous studies have shown that people who take one or two drinks a day live longer than either teetotalers or heavy drinkers, and although many of these studies have been criticized for flaws in method, laboratory evidence backs them up. Alcohol can raise HDL, the “good” cholesterol, and may also have a beneficial effect on the heart by making the platelets-blood cells that cling to the artery walls-less sticky. Hence they’re less likely to promote clogged arteries.
But the paradox is a bit more tangled than this evidence suggests. Apart from the inhabitants of Gascony, the foie gras capital where people traditionally cook with duck and goose fat, most of the French cannot attribute their healthy hearts to foie gras-it’s eaten in small portions and only on special occasions. More important, not all French people drink wine. In 1980 about a third of the French drank no wine; today it’s up to half. A mere 10 percent of the women and 28 percent of the men say they drink wine every day. (They’re still way ahead of us-only 13 percent of Americans drink wine at least once a week.) It may take another decade or two before the results of this change show up in health statistics, but significant numbers of French people seem to be fending off heart disease without the benefits of wine. Maybe it’s the food. After all, everyone eats. And while the French and American diets may be similar in terms of caloric intake, the French put their calories to better use. On average they consume almost five servings of fresh fruits and vegetables a day, compared with about three here; they also eat more grains-and all these foods are rich in antioxidants substances that help the body fight cancer and heart disease. They eat more butter and cheese, but Americans eat more red meat, drink more milk and take in far more empty calories in the form of sugar.
Despite their high-fat diet, moreover, the French manage to stay slim–unlike Americans. Researchers believe that traditional eating patterns are responsible: the French eat three meals a day and they don’t snack. “Here we spend more time at the table,” says Muriel Bellanger, a family counselor in the Loire valley who has lived in the United States. “Over there you eat a burger, then an hour later you are hungry and eat again. Even the automobiles have everything necessary to hold your soda can and popcorn. "
For Americans, the practical implications of the paradox are confusing. The danger of overdosing on foie gras seems slight, but should public policy now focus on the health benefits of wine? “Alcoholics are not a race apart,” says Dr. Michel Craplet of the Paris-based National Association for the Prevention of Alcoholism. “To say drinking two or three glasses is OK will ultimately encourage alcoholism. " Even Dr. Curtis Ellison, a specialist in preventive medicine at the Boston University School of Medicine who is convinced that wine has beneficial effects on the heart, doesn’t endorse such promotional measures as the Food and Wines from France ad. Some research, he says, has come up with a possible association between alcohol and breast cancer. “Our policy should be, let’s get the facts.”
But if prescribing wine as if it were medicine is premature, a dose of good, well-cooked food-to be taken three times a day at a leisurely pace-might do wonders for our hearts, even our figures. Consider a typical lunch served to the children at the Impasse Emelie preschool in Paris recently: the tots dined on corn and beet salad, veal cordon bleu with ratatouille and potatoes, brie and an orange. Maybe they won’t live much longer than their American counterparts growing up on pizza and Kool-Aid. But what a life.
Ounces of Prevention? The French drink 10 times as much wine as Americans. Some say they’re doing their hearts a favor. But their higher cancer-death rate shows it isn’t quite that simple. U.S. FRANCE Yearly wine consumption 2.11 19.05 per person, in gallons Deaths from heart disease 315 174 per 100,000 men, ages 35-64 Deaths from cancer 166.3 254 per 100,000 men, ages 45-54
title: “Eat Drink And Be Wary” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-21” author: “Carole Smith”
A doctor and economist, McClellan, 40, has politics in his blood. His mother, Carole Keeton Strayhorn, is a former mayor of Austin, Texas, and is currently the state comptroller. His brother Scott is the White House press secretary. McClellan served on President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers and in the Clinton Treasury Department. That experience could make him a contender for secretary of Health and Human Services when Tommy Thompson departs. If George W. Bush sticks around for a second term, chances are good he’ll want at least one McClellan nearby.
