Food

Living in Italy for 4 years and taking an interest in the diet and food habits of Italians changed our minds on what our diet should be to stay healthy. We all heard about the Mediterranean diet but if you are not from that region or living in that area of the world it is difficult to follow, different places, different habits. Prior to my coming to Italy I was in China (PRC), I noticed how the average Chinese man weigh about 42 Kg, a teen would weigh about 32 Kg on average. I wondered why did a Chinese man looked so slim compared to a Westerner, you could say some had almost a famish look. Once you put aside body mass and body morphology and other characteristics about race, what I noticed was that the difference in weight had to do with eating habits and what people actually ate or did not eat.

Asians in general eat a lot of vegetables and fruits, and no dairy products or bread. Westerners eat a lot of bread and dairy products and little in terms of vegetables or fruits. Red meat is also eaten in small quantities in Asia where in the West and North America its more red meat the better. An example in most restaurants in Ottawa a small steak is usually 250 gr. where as in Asia it would be chopped up and less than 100 gr.

In Italy, though bread was part of the diet and pasta is an important food staple, butter is not used in cooking, olive oil is used for cooking instead, more healthy. However Italians make conscious choices, per example if you have a plate of pasta, the portion is usually half the size of any North American portion and you will have NO bread or butter with your pasta dish.

Italians will also eat a lot of grilled vegetables and other green vegetables with their main course, potatoes are not necessarily a part of a meal. How often at lunch time I would see men and women eat a plate of green vegetables, grilled or steamed as a main course, no butter just a little olive oil on top and salt and pepper for seasoning.

We have been thinking about all this since our return to Canada, we are trying to avoid what we believe to be unhealthy eating habits, large portions, overly sweet desserts, breads and extra seasoning.

The other night we had Tilapia which is a white fish, simply cooked in olive oil and then seasoned with lemon juice. We have fresh fruit for dessert with a little lemon juice or simply as is, no ice cream or heavy cream and or sugar on top. It is going to be difficult because the food culture in North America tends to be on the heavy, sugary, overly seasoned and large portions per person. We must not forget that we are only 2 generations removed from the days when our grandparents would plough fields all day and tend to large farm animals, heavy and strenuous manual labour, today's lifestyle is plain sedentary and not too strenuous physically.

We certainly do not want to return to un-healthy North American food diet and it is going to be a battle to follow our diet and not fall into the convenience of fast or frozen foods at the supermarket.

Our new Home as of today.

Breakfast Italian style

For many years now, I think at least since 1998 we have made all our hotel bookings with Booking.com, we really like their site and how it is structured. We usually chose an hotel based on the comments left by other people who have stayed at the same hotel and rated it on various grounds, in terms of service, cleanliness, staff, location, etc.

Some comments leave me laughing or seriously wondering if some people should travel at all, let alone leave their house.

In Italy the way meals are structured is very different from elsewhere in Northern Europe or North America. There is no culture or idea that breakfast is the most important meal of the day for kids or adults, that concept does not exist, it is unknown. Usually in the morning people will have a cappuccino or an espresso with a croissant, either plain or filled with honey or jam, you may also have a juice or a fruit cup or a yogurt, that is breakfast. 

Then by 10 am you will have another coffee and maybe a tramensino, which is a sandwich of white bread with a filling like tomato and tuna or ham and cheese, usually warmed up. But again most people will just have an espresso.

No one is having ham and eggs or sausages and bacon or oatmeal or French toast, steak and beans, waffles and whatever else is eaten elsewhere in Northern climes. So I am usually surprise to hear people comment that while they stayed in an hotel in Italy the breakfast was poor or the selection limited. In fact what you are served is an Italian breakfast, what 60 million Italians eat each day.

If you wish to explain to those 60 million people how wrong they are and how you are here to enlightened them, go ahead, you will probably get strange looks. Since you are on vacation just relax and enjoy, you may shed a few unwanted pounds.

Of course if you wish to have such foods for breakfast any 3 star hotel and up will be happy to prepare such items for you, all you have to do is asked. This is the way it is done in Italy.