Emmanuelle Ducros 8:54 a.m., March 6, 2024

Every morning after the 8:30 a.m. news, Emmanuelle Ducros reveals to listeners her “Journey into absurdity”, from Monday to Thursday.

The results of a survey have left you perplexed.

The one dedicated by the Harris interactive institute to the daily diet of the French.

A broad survey, which focuses on all habits, meal preparation, perceived links between health and diet.

The results were revealed yesterday by Olivia Grégoire, the Minister of Commerce, who wants to tackle junk food.

There is work.

One point was the subject of comments: the survey reveals that one in five young people aged 15-24 do not know how to recognize a zucchini. 18% think it is a cucumber, 2% think it is an eggplant. .

12% of young people cannot distinguish a grapefruit from an orange.

We could laugh at the ignorance, but that would miss the point.

If these young people do not recognize these vegetables or do not recognize them well, it is because they do not see their family buying and cooking them.

Only 46% of families cook every day or almost every day.

The others, more than half, no.

However, we learn by observing!

Result: less than a third of young adults cook on a daily basis.

The lessons are lost.

Developments in society explain this loss.

Nutrition specialists highlight the fact that in single-parent homes, cooking is often unmanageable: food sociologist Eric Birlouez explains: “It's easier, for a couple, for a teleworking executive , to cook fresh products rather than processed products.

But these ready-made meals simplify the lives of less fortunate single-parent families with long days.

» In 15 years, the share of these families has doubled in society, 85% are made up of women.

And this has health consequences, which affect the most modest.

Yes, because when we don't cook, we eat processed meals, fast food, that's what the study shows.

Suffice it to say that the recommended 400 grams of fruit and vegetables per day are now ace.

Replaced with something too fatty, too salty, too sweet.

Metabolic diseases, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases are exploding.

Figures from Public Health France show that they affect poorer backgrounds much more, from childhood.

At 10 years old, children from working classes have twice the risk of being overweight than children of executives.  

Behind the masked zucchini affair, a real subject of social justice.

Yes.

The State should often interfere more in what concerns it.

But clearly, food education is one of these subjects.

Here too, messages must be simplified.

We have confused the minds of the French with too many injunctions based on amap, short circuit, organic, local and seasonal, small producers, compared carbon balances and forgotten vegetables.


Messages that only speak to those who have the time and means and that, in fact, fuel the food divide.

We have to get back to basics.

Organic, not organic, fresh, canned, frozen: it doesn’t matter.

Keep it simple.

Cook raw vegetables for your health and your budget.

And if school has a role, it is the role it once had: not food morality, but lessons in objects and domestic economics.