Whole Diet
In the book In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan suggests the explanation is not any single nutrient, but the combination of nutrients found in unprocessed food; not any one nutrient, nor the amount of carbohydrates or fats or proteins, but the whole length and breadth of nutrients found in "natural" foods as opposed to "processed" foods.
The French government had an aggressive prenatal program since the Franco-Prussian War to provide high quality foods to pregnant women and young children. This program has had a profound impact on the epigenetic programming, over the course of several generations, in France and may explain why obesity and heart disease profiles are different in that country.
Read more about this topic: French Paradox
Famous quotes containing the word diet:
“I learned from my two years’ experience that it would cost incredibly little trouble to obtain one’s necessary food, even in this latitude; that a man may use as simple a diet as the animals, and yet retain health and strength.... Yet men have come to such a pass that they frequently starve, not for want of necessaries, but for want of luxuries.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Literary tradition is full of lies about poverty—the jolly beggar, the poor but happy milkmaid, the wholesome diet of porridge, etc.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)