As a rule, Americans are not missing vitamins. So many foods are fortified or enriched with extra vitamins and minerals, and your body can cue you to a variety so that you need not worry about what you eat. If you listen to the body, it can sense high fat or high sugar foods, and it will guide you to stop on small amounts of those foods. The French eat small amounts of rich foods and yet do not overeat them and have a longer life expectancy than Americans. We blame the fat and alcohol in the U.S. but live a shorter life than the French, who eat more fats and drink wine daily.

The French eat 4 times as much butter and 60 percent more cheese and they consume much more saturated fat, because Americans consume a much larger proportion of fat in the form of vegetable oil, with most of that being soybean oil. Thin Eaters eat more like the French, and thin people like the French live longer and have fewer heart attacks. The common denominator of superior health is not the type of fat, but rather the volume and the sensitivity to giving the body the amount of food that it calls for (neither over nor under).

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