[Photo via Grub Street]

In Grub Street's NY Diet today, they get the down low on Mireille Guiliano's
diet.  She is, of course, the famous "non-dieter" who wrote the bestselling novel "French Women Don't Get Fat."  In the article she goes over the ways in which the French woman is superior to her American counterpart....yet she is a complete contradiction of herself.  Mireille highlights the frugality of the French women (they make their own yogurt people!), yet also insists (with an air of righteousness) that they are less disgusting than Americans because they simply MUST eat at a table, and only a quiet one at that (Balthazaar?!) ...sounds more high maintenance than frugal if you ask me.  If you care to read just exactly how to become "French",  here are some of the things I took away:

• Though she insists breakfast is absolutely essential (read: Croissant and cappuccino from cutesy bakery), she is still amazed by the New Yorker’s tendency to eat on the go. “To eat your bagel and your muffin with coffee on the subway is gross,” she says. “How can you do it with the smell and the noise and the moving? I’d rather starve."
• Yogurt is "the French secret to staying slim".  It's also the frugality of French women-it's very inexpensive to make your own."
• Yet she goes to Balthazar for breakfast on Sunday "because it’s very quiet then. French people don’t like to go to noisy places or places with harsh music." (Because that place is the epitome of frugality of course).
• She calls her pudding sensual (it IS from Perry St.)
• She makes sure to throw in that unlike NY, "In France, my friends all work and have kids, and they still manage to find the time to sit down for dinner because it’s a priority."

and my favorite:

• She compares us to livestock: "I love American food, and there are a lot of things we don’t eat — like ears of corn that we feed to animals."

So let me get this straight, in order to become thin like the French woman, I just need to start making my own yogurt, calling my food sensual, and stop eating like a pig...sounds about right.