The first reason Italians are so healthy is that they eat food that is fresh. It's been that way for generations. Unfortunately, supermarkets are now slowly taking over the small, family-run shops which primarily dominated the market in previous times.
There are two reasons why the Italian lifestyle keeps most Italians fit and healthy: We eat genuine food and we are physically active. We walk everywhere, whenever possible. Whether you live in Italy or not here is a list of habits you can adopt according to my new book : The Mamma Mia Diet!.
Besides portion control, Italian culture plays a huge role in the success of the Mediterranean diet. Rarely do Italians eat on the go; meals are sit-down affairs that are — whether formal or informal — a social occasion. Food is often shared family-style, and sad desk lunches are unheard of.
Italy is known for its generally very good health system, and the life expectancy is 80 for males and 85 for females, placing the country 5th in the world for life expectancy, and low infant mortality.
They live with a sense that there will be time for everything. And this decreases the level of stress. Somehow even with their long siesta and with often being late Italians are not in a rush, and as a result they are much less stressed and happier than people in many other cultures.
Mediterranean diet
As the renowned medical journal Lancet points out, eating habits play a key role when it comes to Italians and longevity. A large part of the population can easily bring fresh and healthy food to the table, regardless of social status and income. This is what makes the difference.
Don't point to people: Italians don't like people pointing to them with their fingers. It makes them feel like animals at a zoo. Ask for permission before photographing someone: For the same reason, you should always ask their permission before taking a photo of someone.
About 1 in 10 people is obese in Italy, significantly less than the OECD average of 1 in 6. More than 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women are overweight.
There are two main explanations for Italy's aging population; a high life expectancy and a low birth rate. The result is that people live longer, alongside a declining number of births. Italy is among the countries with the highest life expectancy at birth worldwide.
A typical Italian diet consists of three meals in a day. The most common foods in the Italian diet include pasta, cheese, vegetables, olive oil, meats, and wine. Italians give a lot of importance to fresh ingredients.
Italians eat predominantly sweet things for breakfast. This can be quite a shock if you are used to having toast, eggs, and bacon first thing in the morning. Instead, the traditional breakfast in Italy relies almost exclusively on baked goods like biscuits, cookies, pastries, rusks, and cakes.
Italians eat the most pasta worldwide – about 60 pounds of pasta per person per year. Most Italians eat pasta every day but they keep their portions in check. A portion in Italy is about a cup and the meal includes a small portion of meat and a large portion of vegetables and salad.
One of the pillars of Italian culture is family and the importance of spending time together. Making and eating pasta together as a family is just one of the few ways that Italians do this– that's why you've probably heard so much about Italian grandmothers spending hours making and cooking pasta for the whole family!
Italians are known to be very devoted to their food and they love seasonal and fresh ingredients. Their foods contain little or no fatty creams and oils and are always in fairly sized portions. These eating habits are basically the proper way a person should eat if such a person chooses to eat healthy.
Most dinners consist of a salad, the primo (pasta or soup dish) and the secondo (meat or fish dish). The Italians also enjoy cooked vegetables like artichokes, eggplants, mushrooms, spinach and zucchini, which they either buy at the market or grow in their gardens.
Italians eat well, eat a lot but stay fit because they generally follow a well-balanced nutrition that includes a wide variety of foods. If I had pizza yesterday night, today I will try to avoid carbs for lunch, so I am going to make a salad! If I had a margherita pizza yesterday night and I had a salad for lunch…
Asian people have the longest average life expectancy (83.5 years) and American Indian/Alaska Natives the shortest (65.2 years).
Eating plenty of fresh fish, fruits and vegetables, nuts, and cooking with olive oil could explain the high life expectancy rate in Italy. The number of centenarians, or people that are over the age of 100, has tripled in Italy over the last 15 years.
Living to 83 on average, the Japanese have long had one of the highest life expectancies. Okinawa, often called 'the land of immortals', has been a global centre for longevity research, as these southern Japanese islands have more than 400 centenarians.
Health phenomenon
According to The Independent, 38% of Stoccareddo's men have high cholesterol, as opposed to the Italian average of 21%. However, about 23% of Italian men have low levels of HDL cholesterol as opposed to 5.4% of men in Stoccareddo.
If you've ever been to Italy, you've probably found yourself wondering how Italians eat so many carbs and stay so fit and healthy. The pastries, the pizza, the pasta, the bread.. carbs never seem to end in Italy! All these delicacies play such a huge part in the Italian diet and hedonistic Italian lifestyle in general.
How do you use negative sentences in Italian? Making a sentence negative is very simple in Italian. While in English negative sentences are created by adding negative words like “isn't”, “aren't”, “doesn't”, “don't”, or “didn't”, in Italian, we just need the negative word “non”.
Do not give a brooch, handkerchiefs, or knives as they connote sadness. Do not eat with your hands, not even fruits. Do not leave the table during dinner, which is considered rude. Do not point with your index finger and pinkie finger at the same time, which is considered extremely vulgar in Italy.