Food, Fat, the French, our fellow Anglo-Saxons, etc.

Anybody remember the infamous USDA Food Pyramid? That remarkably uninformative graphic that intructs us all to have so many "servings" of this or that each day without showing exactly what a "serving" is? Some time ago I went rambling around the Food Pyramid site and finally found out what exactly they mean. And guess what? The servings our very own United States Department of Agriculture came up with are the same size as the portions routinely served at each meal in France.

(Oh, dear me.)

Of course, we "patriotic" Amurakins have not been following along with this obvious infiltration of our dear USDA by those surrender monkeys! Of course, we have been serving ourselves double or triple sized portions! Gotta feed up in prep for all those wars, and resultant economic "slowdowns," our dear leaders lead us right into. Yup. Gotta build up our strength. Uh huh.

Sure folks.

Okay. Enough with the sarcasm. (Y'all did recognize the above as sarcasm, didn't you?) The French have a lifestyle that is the envy of much of the rest of the world. (Methinks the Brit above doth protest too much. ;)) As do the Italians, the Spanish, the Greeks. In these cultures food is a source of pleasure, but not the only source of pleasure. And that is the key.

Lately, I've been looking for alternative sources of pleasure. So far, I've found that going for a half-hour's walk around my neighborhood is very pleasent. I don't race-walk, or carry weights, or wear a pedometer. I do admire the changing leaves on the trees, wave hello to neighbors and their kids, pet their dogs. And then I come home feeling happy and rested and ... full. Like I'd just eaten a particularly good meal. Now if only I could get myself to do something of this nature every day.