Nutritionists and Nutrition in France

Watching our diet is something vital. We are what we eat, and it does not reflect only in the physical aspect, but also in the way we behave, the way we interact with others, and our state of mind.

As the Latin phrase says: “Mens sana in corpore sano” (meaning, healty mind in a healthy body). It is important to eat all types of foods, as well as the right amounts of carbohydrates, fats and proteins to develop correctly and give our 100% in all of our tasks.

One way to guide your nutrition and the foods you can consume on a daily basis is the famous food pyramid, used widely in nutrition. This represents the number of servings of certain food groups you should eat without trespassing our limits and end up in a worse condition. It is divided into 5 categories or groups in most of the cases.

For example, at the very bottom of this pyramid you will find the most important food group of all: bread, cereals, grains & potatoes; then, fruit & vegetables are the next in line; after that milk, cheese & dairy foods; meat fish & alternatives are almost the last one, and we end with fats, oils & confectionery which should be eaten occasionally only.

And this is not for the sake of eating more certain food or avoiding sugars altogether. It is about getting the greatest possible amount of vitamins and minerals, since every single vitamin and mineral plays an important role in our body to maintain us in good shape and in good health (to have a healthy mind as well!). Complementing a good nutrition with regular exercise can work wonders, since, for example, increasing your blood flow throughout your body can help to mobilize these new acquired organic molecules (vitamins and minerals). This happens whether you do aerobic or anaerobic exercise.

As always, there’s a branch of medicine focused on nutrition. The guys implicated on this are known as nutritionists, and they help all types of people, not only the common person that wishes to have a better nutrition. A nutritionist can specialize in specific fields such as animal nutrition, public health, sports nutrition.

However, you should take this warning into account: a nutritionist is not the same thing as a dietitian. In most countries, a dietitian is the one that has gone through a degree program, and then acquired the necessary licenses and certifications to practice his new profession, while a nutritionist can be any person claiming to know how to prepare diets and improve your nutrition (such as that instagram nutritionist-influence who some of your friends may follow).

In medicine, and also in nutrition there are some “branches” that are not regarded as such by the majority of professionals and agencies charged with the task of issuing certifications for dietitians. Some of these controversial practices are homeopathy, herbalism, and detoxification, and they have their own special ways of tackling nutrition.

Homeopathy is defined as an alternative medicine system (the same can be said about the Chinese practice of acupuncture, but this has proven results in the past) in which certain substances are said to cure a wide array of diseases. On the other hand, herbalism or just herbal medicine that studies plants for curing sickness, and this has been very popular since centuries; the problem comes with paraherbalism or just phytomedicine, which is considered a pseudoscience that uses both unrefined plants and also animal extracts. Finally, the last one is detoxification, in the sense of pseudo-medicine, claiming to suppress “toxins” that have supposedly accumulated in the body for a long period of time, and may be causing some conditions in the body.

Now, let’s dive deeper into the French diet. As you may now, French cuisine is one the best in the world, if not the best of all (look Pixar’s Ratatouille movie to see what we’re talking about!).

Each region in France has its own special cuisine and ways of cooking food. For example, while in the north it is common to use butter when cooking, the south prefers olive oil. Some of the top French foods you will encounter in the country are the French onion soup, the Cassoulet, Flamiche, Duck confit, Coq au vin, Socca, Tielle, etc. Despite this, the common denominator of French cuisine consists on wine and cheese.

The truth is that the French gastronomy wasn’t always so original. Before the 17th Century, it was influenced by Italian cuisine and the Mediterranean diet in general. Then, the famous chefs François Pierre La Varenne and Marie-Antoine Carême led a series of changes to change French cuisine and give it its current identity.

French cuisine has become so important the UNESCO has recognized it and included it into the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage to give it a special protection and raise a worldwide awareness about its importance.

Also, the government, as well as the European Union, tries to make sure that the French population is receiving the best of the best. That’s why the appellation d’origine controlée (AOC or protected designation of origin in English) exists. It is a type of certification granted to certain agricultural products’ indicators, in accordance with the environmental factors that may affect crops depending on where they are brought up.

However, despite everything, people in France are still thin and having a good health overall. We cannot favor French cuisine for it healthy ingredients, because, truth is, it is high is saturated fats.

But, in contrast with that, and something that may explain why French people are thin, is that parents and families in France are taking responsibilities and teaching their children at an early age that it is ok to love food, but overeating or having gluttony is totally not healthy.

This phenomenon of the French having good health and being thin has a name. It is called the French paradox and it shows the contradiction found in the French population’s diet. That is, that they eat saturated foods without brakes, and they are still safe and sound and with a low number of reported cases of coronary artery disease. Some say it is an illusion and does not make any sense at all, but the concept and its associated conclusions are still looming over the government’s statistics.

We would like to briefly explain the function of certain vitamins, since it is very important to know at the moment of choosing foods (you should know how much of a certain vitamin is included within an specific food).

The total number of vitamins is 13, and they are described as organic because they’re composed of carbon. Vitamin A helps to maintain our vision and the healthy functioning of the skin. Vitamin B, on the other hand, is a little bit more complex, since it contains approximately 8 categories (Vitamins B3, B6, B12, etc.), but it basically helps to produce muscle tone, to release energy from proteins, fats and carbohydrates during metabolism, to build tissues, cell development, etc.

Then, we have Vitamin C, another big one. Stop consuming Vitamin C and chances are you will get scurvy, or just sick. It is essential to form the structure of bones, cartilages, muscle, etc. Vitamin D is the bright one; it is naturally produced inside our bodies when we expose to the sun rays for a while. And, finally, and sometimes forgotten, Vitamin E helps to protect blood cells and body tissue.