LET FOOD BE THY medicine and medicine be thy food.
– Hippocrates
Want to know the secret behind how Italians stay so thin and happy? It’s a secret I uncovered during my trip to Italy, where I wrote this blog. Sitting in the Umbrian countryside, enjoying a home-cooked meal prepared by Simonetta, a local chef, the answer is clear to me. Family, friends, and fresh, whole food are all part of the pleasure of being alive. And these pleasures help keep you healthy and thin. It’s that simple!
The food I’ve eaten in Italy is real food, meant to savored, not just used as fuel. The meal was served on a long wooden table, set with beautiful ceramic plates painted with sunflowers. Simonetta made light chicken meatballs with a fresh tomato sauce, accompanied by a fresh arugula and radicchio salad, and a side salad of vine-ripened, freshly-picked garden tomatoes, fresh basil, roasted peppers, and grilled eggplant, drizzled with fresh extra-virgin olive oil made from the olive trees surrounding the old stone farmhouse.
That’s a long way from typical American cuisine — fast and processed foods. Coming from a place where 2 out of every 3 people are overweight, I found the sheer lack of obesity and girth startling!
Looking for foods with labels in Umbria? They’re hard to find in this ancient countryside. In fact, a meal from a box or a can is a strange notion in these hills. Not only that, but here food is a source of pleasure, not anxiety. Even more shocking? No one here is on a diet!
Why? Well, the Italians here are eating reasonable portions of healthy foods — they don’t gain weight, so there’s no need to lose it.
Here’s an example of what I am talking about. We went out to a local family restaurant in Umbria where families and friends all sat and relaxed and on a stone terrace under a trellis. We waited for perhaps 20 minutes before the waiter came over. Once he did, we learned that there was no menu and there were no special dishes — just home-cooked, local foods. The food came out slowly as we talked and enjoyed the evening. And what food it was!
To start with we had grilled radicchio lettuce, dark greens with olive oil, and grilled eggplant with pine nuts. Next came homemade pasta cooked al dente, almost hard by American standards (which makes it more slowly absorbed with less impact on blood sugar), and served with local black truffles, garlic, and local extra-virgin olive oil. And it was just a small serving of pasta — not the mounds of soggy noodles served in most American restaurants.
Then a simple roasted chicken arrived, served on big platter and shared by all of us. We washed it all down with a bottle of local red wine without any sulfites, followed by a tiny cup of decaf espresso as the evening came to a close. The food was pleasantly satisfying and the portions were of reasonable sizes. Life is lived on a human scale here, at a sane pace. There’s no rush.
In fact, we sat and ate for 3 hours — and the families and friends sitting around us also spent the whole evening eating and enjoying each other’s company. Stories, laughter, and pleasure filled the evening.
I looked around at the other patrons, there were no American tourists. And no wonder. This was a place off the grid, not in a tour book, known and used by locals, the food cooked by Irma, the matron and owner of the restaurant for decades. Most striking was the relaxed atmosphere, the slow pace, and the thinness and healthy glow of all the restaurant patrons.
Coming from a place where 2 out of every 3 people are overweight, I found the sheer lack of obesity and girth startling! If there’s one thing this trip has made clear to me, it’s that eating whole, fresh foods that are locally grown and lovingly prepared is essential to good health.
Unfortunately, this is a foreign experience to most Americans. Most of us don’t eat foods that come from the earth, but instead from a box or can or prepared by food scientists in a factory.
The problem?
These foods are unrecognizable to our genes and our cells. When our body doesn’t recognize these processed foods, we get sick — and gain weight.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. You can make a different choice. You can choose to eat whole, unprocessed foods. Eating this way isn’t just good for your taste buds. It’s the answer to most of our chronic diseases and the obesity epidemic.
Once we change our way of eating (and hopefully our pace of life) to incorporate whole, fresh foods, and time and pleasure around meals, then many of our health and obesity problems will disappear. Though I know we all can’t live exactly like Italians in the countryside, we can bring a slice of their way of eating and living into our lives.
Try these tips:
- Try to choose only the freshest, most locally grown ingredients when shopping.
- Search out farmers’ markets in your area to find foods as they were meant to be consumed — right off the farm.
- Cook simply and enjoy the tastes of the best ingredients.
- Spend time with friends and family during meals. Make a beautiful dinner once or twice a week and plan on having a slow, languishing meal with no other plans for the evening.
I hope you’ll take my message to heart by incorporating the secrets of good Italian health into your own life. Your cells, your genes and your soul will thank you.
Now I’d like to hear from you.
Have you started eating more whole, fresh foods? Have you noticed any effects on your health and weight?
Are you incorporating any Italian eating practices into your own lifestyle?
What are some of your most memorable meals? What made them so special?
Have you visited any other countries or cultures and noticed any differences between how they eat vs. us in the U.S.?
Please leave your thoughts by adding a comment below—but remember, we can’t offer personal medical advice online, so be sure to limit your comments to those about taking back our health!
To your good health,
Mark Hyman, MD
Beautiful post. More people need to read it.
If I could afford a cook then I would be able to eat this way, instead like most of Americans I am pressed for time.
I work, my wife works and we don’t have the time to prepare great foods like this.
Instead we do what we can by eating only Organic vegetables and naturally raise chickens and buffalo meat.
Most Americans are pressed for time also and don’t realize how bad the processed foods are for them.
Americans are busy with so much, that the majority of people in other countries wouldn’t do or put up with.
We are also bombarded with sorry commercials that have brainwashed many Americans that the food is okay.
Yep, sure wish I could eat like the Italians, but I don’t have the time and when I do get the time, I only want to sit back and enjoy the break from the Hassle.
Hidden in this excellent advice about the advantages of slow food is the underlying principle: how to feel full on less, and stay unhungry for longer. If we eat slowly, we fill up before having wolfed down too much, and if we eat sufficient protein, it keeps us feeling full FAR longer than carbs do.
I find that snacking on healthy fatty protein, like one or two pieces of herring, for example, perhaps followed by one or two raspberries to cleanse the palate, is sufficient to hold me for hours before dinner.
In the last year I have given up diet pop, I drink bottled water with a twist of lemon or lime. I am really proud of myself. I am 65 yrs old and have drank pop for all my life. I used to drink several cans a day of diet pop, thinking it was ok.
Waitihg for our Farmers Market to come to town in June. I love picking out the super fresh fruits and vegetables. I am a type 2 diabetic on two different insulins. Want to get off all that. I am also on two different blood pressure pills. I bought your book and like your ideas on sugar control.
Hopefully with spring coming and better weather I will be riding my three wheel bike.
Carol B.
I grew up in an Italian family eating just the way you described. All meals were an event and took most of the day on Sundays. My Grandparents brought their traditions with them from Italy and generations followed them. Papa had his own garden, raised his own chickens, cows, goats. Made his own wine and cheese. Nana had her flower garden and herb garden. Orange soda pop was for Sunday only as were desserts. They had a restaurant and the meals were the same there however when they passed on modern ways took over and before long I saw large cans of purchased tomato sauce in the restaurant and not Nana’s canned tomatoes. I thank them for what I learned eating with them and have tried to keep their traditions going. Now my grown children appreciate our way of eating and enjoying a nice, long meal together. I remember the women would gather in the kitchen after dinner to clean up while the men played cards but most of all there was happiness and pride every step of the way. Nana was 97 when she passed on!
Jennifer J.
My mom and her parents were born in Italy….Italian Jews …Mom was born in FLorence and raised in Venice..They were thin and gorgeous…only when they came to this country after Nazi Germany did the family integrate into Amercan culture did they begin seeing Italian AMericans fat and obese….totally different mindset than in Italy….
We were in Italy last October and saw no restaurant like the one described. What is the name and where is it ? We saw locals eating huge “beefasteak.”
Great article! As one author put it, if a “food” item has a label, it is not really food and you should not be eating it.
Subscribing to a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program is a wonderful alternative to farmer’s markets or trying to find real food in a grocery store. For a reasonable fee you get a box of fresh, in-season regionally-grown food, usually organic and sometimes even grown using biodynamic principles.
Participating in a CSA program supports local farming and food production, something that will be a lifeline in the near future as the fossil fuel economy and food production infrastructure crumbles.
Wonderful and so true. I have been saying this for years. It was a beautifully explained experience and I could feel how much you enjoyed it.
Thanks,
Nina
Wonderful! I have been preparing natural whole foods meals for decades. What i miss is the family! In Italy, and many other countries, families stay close to their bithplaces and parents. In America it is more the norm for kids to move all over the county for jobs, and that lovely generational thing is becoming obselete.
I just spent a month in the the south of France, and discovered the exact same thing. The only over weight people I saw were tourists.
take the time to nourish yourself properly with real food, instead of
shoving a fake, fast non real “food” down your throut. I overheard
someone at a restaurant asking to be served quickly because they
had to be somewhere. The response was “not my problem” they
believe that it is important to take time to enjoy the properly prepared
food, and enjoy the experience of dining. Bon appetite!
Also thought your book awesome, stayed on your diet and lost over 20 pounds. More important my doctor was amazed at difference in test results after being on diet with supplements. Was able to stop several prescription medications and reduce others after being on diet. Goal is to reduce type II diabetes and possible to eliminate it entirely. America needs more Doctors willing to try functional medicine approach like Mark Hyman & Dr. oz.
Our experience in Italy was much the same. We had long, leisurely meals with wine at every meal and bread and we walked everywhere. Never gained a pound and felt so wonderful. There did not appear to be any overweight Italians. They have the key!
I agree with this entirely –oh, to have such a lifestyle. Today, everyone is in a hurry, going someplace else, or transfixed by the Ipod. Mediterranean families, in general, make fresh food, greens and fruit a celebration! That story was something out of the past, happening now. TI will re-read and re-read for inspiration. hank you.
I agree with this entirely –oh, to have such a lifestyle. Today, everyone is in a hurry, going someplace else, or transfixed by the Ipod. Mediterranean families, in general, make fresh food, greens and fruit a celebration! That story was something out of the past, happening now. I will re-read and re-read for inspiration. Thank you.