Red Wine
The “French paradox”— is the notion that the French have a relatively low incidence of coronary heart disease, despite having a diet of cheese, chocolate, and wine.
When a description of this paradox was aired on CBS’s “60 Minutes” on Nov. 17, 1991, it was proposed that because the French drank more red wine than Americans, they had decreased incidences of cardiac diseases. After the broadcast, scores of Americans immediately went running to wine stores which resulted in a 44 percent increase in sales of red wine in U.S. supermarkets. Some wineries even began lobbying for the right to label their products “health food.”
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and CNRS in Paris compared the size of restaurant meals, single-serve foods and cookbook portions on both sides of the Atlantic. Their findings suggest that the French eat smaller portions than American – by about 25%, so of course they stay slimmer.
