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!

[quote workwoes123]@INeedNewShoes

I can confirm that the school meals are very similar. The head chef at my kids school used to cook for the French navy submariners so he’s pretty good at what he does. IIRC they had roast guinea fowl for their Christmas menu last year. Sample menu for next week :

Starters: Hardboiled eggs with dressing , pâté, shredded carrot in lemon vinaigrette, melon, grapefruit
Mains: duck in orange sauce, Toulouse sausage (free range), vegetarian chill.
Sides: rice from the Camargue, organic green beans
Dairy: Brie / Comté cheese, natural or fruit yoghurt
Dessert: banana, fresh pineapple, apple or pear.

Only water on offer to drink. I think they get chips maybe once a term. No tuck shops, no snacks, no vending machines etc.[/quote]
I'm trying to imagine free range Toulouse sausages deep in la France profonde. In my mind there is a pasture near the Canal du Midi where sausages gambol around munching the grass until they're big enough to be strung up at the boucherie.

Please, nobody disabuse me of this idyllic image.

@crosstalk

Derailing somewhat. I filmed a group of English kids visiting French kids over a week. A lot of them were suspicious of what they might find to eat. They couldn't believe the lunches at (a perfectly humdrum) the French school. There was no choice (apart from those who had allergies) for the 4 courses but it was eg salade mixte to start, roast chicken with potatoes boulangere followed by green beans, and a plum mousse. As others have said, there was no snacking.

Another one wondering why so many hospitals have leased space to unhealthy outlets.

A few years back, I was doing the admin for a French exchange where both sides had to fill in a form giving allergies for the host families.

One French child had a nut allergy.

We had five who included a copy of their healthcare plans and AAI forms to show allergies to shellfish, dairy products, Kiwi, nuts/seeds or declared celiac disease - and had spoken to the SENDCO in advance to arrange for the relevant documentation to be translated into French so there wasn't any miscommunication.

38 of our kids (out of 50) declared allergies to variations upon the theme of

Meat on the bone
Fish
Garlic
Spicy food
Broccoli
Boiled potatoes
Snails
Frogs' Legs
Peas
Chicken on the bone
Pork (there was a separate section to declare religious dietary requirements, this was somebody who did not have any such obligations - as was demonstrated by the rest of the sentence saying 'sausages OK')
Halal Food
Smelly cheese
All beans except baked beans
All vegetables except chips

NeverDropYourMooncup

Love that list.

Your canteen sounds amazing but I've been there with MFP and he isn't necessarily daft or mad or stupid or whatever else PPs have said. When you are getting a grip on your intake and have found a method that works for you, then being strict and disciplined is effective and worth forgoing food that you might like for a period. There can be a big variance in calorie content of dressings, stews etc and whilst it sounds a tasty and balanced meal, and certainly more healthy overall than a packaged sandwich, it sounds as though your colleague has found something that works for him and is sticking with it. He's not hurting anyone, is he?

@Haudyourwheesht

A lot of people are unable to use common sense when it comes to food. Is it oily? Then there's probably oil in it. Is it creamy? It probably contains cream / mayo or similar. However, you generally need much less of foods like that to fill you up than the highly processed 'low calorie' ready meals that you can buy. And you're much less likely to need to snack shortly after so less likely to reach for a 'low calorie' biscuit or bar, packed with weird sweetners to con your body into thinking you're full.

Well yes, but if you are on a calorie-controlled eating plan, or limiting your intake of anything else for whatever reason, then just knowing whether something is oily isn't really good enough.

I think this is quite patronising tbh.

I don’t believe people don’t have the vaguest idea of the nutritional content of a carrot or a yoghurt, without scanning it? Seems very disconnected from the purpose of food and eating to have absolutely no idea

There is a massive difference between healthy eating and the careful monitoring of dietary intake in order to be a pretty dedicated bodybuilder. At no point did the OP suggest this guy was a bodybuilder.

I think (other than in the case of medical issues) that kind of calorie obsession is verging on mental illness 'tbh'.

@KayKayWat

Question for those of you who can eyeball nutrition.

How can you eat the following every day without tracking:

120g protein
308g carbs
36g fats

And on non-lifting days

120g protein
58 carbs
77 fats

I wouldn't know.

I played top-level amateur sports in my teens and twenties, socially in my thirties, and gave up once I turned 40 and family/kids came along. My nutrition needs, both overall and in terms of the balance between energy and protein, have varied immensely throughout my lifetime.

When I was playing, I'd have a larger portion of pasta the day before a game if I knew I'd be bowling 20 overs, and more protein/less rice for dinner immediately after the game. Instinctively. Now I've stopped I look at a pork chop and say "that'll do" and if I have an extra couple of sardines and a couple of beers at a barbecue I'll simply skip the couscous. Instinctively.

I am the same size and weight now, at 45, that I was at 21 when I stopped growing. I'm never going to work in a field where people pay me to take my clothing off, but I'm fit and healthy and it simply wouldn't occur to me to weigh out 308g of carbs one day and 58g the next, partly because I'm just not that anally retentive and also because - instinctively - that would be a path to madness.

Quelle horrour!

Not a surprise though - you can't really buy unprocessed foods in America. Even the supermarkets don't sell ingredients so Americans aren't really familiar with cooking and raw ingredients.

You're colleague is probably wondering why the factory isn't being declared.

@KayKayWat

Also, there are plenty of countries where people generally eat healthy but you don't see many really buff guys. So the French, for example, are generally slimmer than the Brits/US but you don't see many Tom Hardy or Jason Momoa types in France. There are a lot more effeminate looking men on mopeds like in Italy.

There's a difference between eating fresh food for general health and eating stuff where you can track protein to get your gram of protein per lb bodyweight.

Not true at all. Italian men are often quite small but French men are generally fitter and better looking than British men imo. A much higher of the U.K. male and female % are overweight/obese.

The kind of pumped up Love Island look tattooed chav that passes for “buff” in the U.K. makes me heave tbh. I can’t stand either Tom Hardy or Jason Momoa.

At no point did the OP suggest this guy was a bodybuilder.

The vast majority of men who track macros are doing it as part of a gym/bodybuilding routine.

@madroid

Quelle horrour!

Not a surprise though - you can't really buy unprocessed foods in America. Even the supermarkets don't sell ingredients so Americans aren't really familiar with cooking and raw ingredients.

You're colleague is probably wondering why the factory isn't being declared.

I lived in San Francisco, what supermarkets have you visited that don’t sell fresh ingredients? In Sanfran and elsewhere while in the states I have never come across a supermarket that doesn’t sell fresh fruit, veg, meat, various seasonings etc.

Haudyourwheesht that’s all very well and good but how much oil, cream, Mayo etc is in there? You can’t tell just from eyeballing.

@madroid

Quelle horrour!

Not a surprise though - you can't really buy unprocessed foods in America. Even the supermarkets don't sell ingredients so Americans aren't really familiar with cooking and raw ingredients.

You're colleague is probably wondering why the factory isn't being declared.

This is a load of nonsense.