AIBU to think this is a daft way to eat "healthily"?

[workwoes123]

I live in France. Like many French workplaces, mine has a cantine offering a freshly-cooked, 3/4 course, lunch which is absolutely standard here. Examples of the menu on offer:

Small plate of salad starter: carrot / beetroot / green beans in vinaigrette, mixed bean salad, boiled eggs, rice salad, green salad, tomato salad etc.

Main course of protein plus veg and carbs: beef casserole, grains and courgette gratin: roast chicken leg, potatoes, green beans; fish in lemon sauce, rice, spinach etc.

Dairy: small portion of cheese, or a yoghurt

Dessert: fruit puree, fromage blanc with rasberry coulis; small piece of cake; fruit salad.

The food quality is not quite restaurant standard, but it's healthy, cheap (€4,50 for 4 courses) and mostly cooked on site from actual ingredients. All courses are optional, no one's forced to eat anything.

At a social event with some US colleagues one of them said he's really struggling with the food at the cantine as 'he doesn't know what's in it'. Instead he goes out at lunchtime and buys a processed meal / salad / packaged sandwiches because they have a barcode on them: he can apparently scan this using his phone and it tells him the fat /sugar / calorie content of what he's eating. He claims that this is 'healthier' than eating actual food at the cantine.

It seems mad to me to actively increase the amount of processed food at the expense of fresh ingredients, and claim this is 'healthier'? I can just about see the point of this when comparing one processed food with another - but dismissing freshly-cooked food because it doesn't come with a barcode? Seems crazy to me!

*Canteen. I thought my spelling looked wonky

Oh, that description of your lunch reminds me of when I was an English language assistante in a French school, eons ago! You lucky duck, good food and well-balanced and so cheap!

I once visited the UN in Geneva with DH who wanted to look in their archives for stuff to do with his work. We had lunch in their canteen several times and it was great. Wonderful salads, there was even wine and beer available. This was about 20 years ago, would be interested to know if that’s still the case!

I can understand when you're trying to diet that you need to know what's in the food so you don't eat a bunch of hidden calories. I suppose the salad dressing isn't Caesar but stuff like that can add a lot and if you don't have a.good knowledge of nutrition then it can be easier to eat what you can quantify.

I loved it when dh and i had workplace canteens

We’d have our main meal at lunchtime and it freed up so much of the evening

And yes I understand your suprise, he could have a salad and fruit

(Having said that I’m not really keen on salad and fruit and back in the day my appetite was so small Id quite often just have dessert for lunch 😳)

yes id have to agree he sounds a bit thick , but my best friend who does not like americans at all and slaps a generic label on them all of being arrogant and stupid would not be surprised by this . personally i just think some people are a bit thick regardless of nationality

You're right but that person cleary has issues around food.

Might depend on portion sizes.

A lot of us eat just one course for our main meal most days I would think.

If you had that for lunch though then surely you'd just have a lighter evening meal even if you did usually cook in the evening?

The impression I get, from holiday and work visits to France, having family members who lived there for 20 years, having French colleagues and being in contact with French friends, is that the whole culture around food is different.

They don’t calorie count as they don’t snack. No one eats biscuits and crisps at their desks, they have healthy meals and get a sense of when they have over indulged. E.g if we have been at a massive dinner, they will just have half an avocado for lunch.

And don’t binge in drink.

And I bet the fish isn’t served in a massive mound of rice that covers the whole plate.

But your colleague is used to observing healthy eating in a different way.

@NumberZ

Is he using my fitness pal? My OH stays away from meals he can’t quantify easily with the app.

Yes and unfortunately it's easier to count calories with packaged food as well.

I have fallen into this trap when tracking calories. It is easier to do it from a label than eyeballing a plate of food and basically guessing.

I disagree with ‘that person clearly has issues around food’. It’s foolish to not track your intake if you’re actively trying to lose weight.

I have no comments on your colleague but can I just say I loved the description of your canteen meals. Quite inspiring for a massive food obsessive like me!

If he’s not overweight and trying to lose he does sound like he’s on the verge of an ED as other posters have said.

Alternatively, he may be struggling with the unfamiliarity of the French diet, and is just dying for his familiar processed foods. It could be that the packet stuff lists then ingredients as well as the calorie content etc. He could be the type that lives off burgers, chicken nuggets and pizza. Some people have a very limited diet.

Your canteen sounds great. The only reasonable excuse I can think of for your US colleague is if he has an allergy to certain foods--which is the only circumstance that for me would turn your lovely canteen food into a booby trapped nightmare. But it doesn't sound as if he does have an allergy or he would have mentioned it.

As a by the way, in my view all restaurants and canteens should publish ingredients lists of everything that's in their dishes.

This would avoid nightmares such as happened to me when I had a milk allergy for a few yearswaitress told me a certain meal was "dairy free" when it had yoghurt in it. I tackled her on it and she claimed yoghurt was not dairy (this was long before the time when you could get dairy-free yoghurtall yoghurt was made of cow's milk).

It depends what his goals/ priorities are.

Really it's none of your business.

But if he's on a calorie controlled diet, or trying to limit/ control his intake of certain things, having nutritional information listed can be very helpful.

The food you list sounds lovely but there's no way of knowing the calorie and nutritional content. When I was on a strict diet I would do the same as your colleague, because it effectively would have been healthier for me at that time (enabling me to stick to my food plan).

@hotmeatymilk

My Fitness Pal is such a pain for adding ingredients. We used it when trying to up calories for a poorly family member. But you’d search, say, “almond” and 99% of what was in there would be “Fat-free almond-flavour synthetic thing” or “Almond substitute crunch-o-topping” and other processed foods. Trying to find natural ingredients on there is impossible. Think it’s largely used by people who eat like the OP’s colleague.

Please can you derail your own thread and tell me more of this wonderful lunch menu.

I concur. I would like more info on the lunch menus also!

(What do you think a standard evening meal would be then after a lunch like that? ) I am quite fascinated by how other food cultures.

As an aside, if I ate all that at lunchtime I'd be asleep all afternoon

And the size of a house in 3 months. I can understand anyone wanting something a bit more moderate, and to avoid the temptation to eat too much.

@ICouldHaveCheckedFirst

In my next life, I'm coming back to live in France, OP.

As you were.

😂😂😂

I get it, OP. I occasionally worked in Brussels and loved the healthful, freshly prepared food at the canteen. I think this works best when the whole food culture supports it though, so calorie counting and dieting just isn’t a thing to think about. I am trying to rebalance my way of eating to a Mediterranean one here in the UK, but it’s not as easy to do as it should be.

Is he actually overweight OP?

Well, the food sounds lovely and something similar to what I am offers at my work here in the Uk.
But, what this guy does is noyb.

Can't you accept it as a cultural difference and stop judging. The fact that you've even posted about it says more about you than the actual other person. It's American bashing on the sly.

My DH has Type 1 but he has got really good at working out the carbs in family meals or restaurant meals. This has meant I've taken tips from him on how to do this for MFP. I weigh my food at home (including e.g. takeaways) so I get to know sizes. I know what a cup size looks like so I can use US measurements a lot. And if you are eating veg and salad etc, lean meat, a bread roll, it's not rocket science.

@CoolOven

As an aside, if I ate all that at lunchtime I'd be asleep all afternoon

And the size of a house in 3 months. I can understand anyone wanting something a bit more moderate, and to avoid the temptation to eat too much.

From my own experience, it's all about portion control and very well balanced. Not overwhelmingly carby. You don't need to eat the cheese and/or dessert, anyway, if you don't want to. As mentioned above, the French tend not to snack between meals, so they'll go ahead and probably have a similar meal for dinner. Or eggs on toast. Depending.

@Simonjt

I have diabetes, canteen food is a nightmare as I can calculate my insulin need. Being able to eat what you want is a luxury many of us don’t have.

Was just about to say the same. I have a T1 son and eating out, whilst lovely, is very stressful in a way that grabbing a meal deal from Tesco etc is not. Sad but true.