Dairy food in France
 

Hi Everyone!
I'm leaving in 36 hours to my 6 days trip in France and since I'm in a diet (and lost aleady 7 kilo working hard) I need your advice: I thpught of taking few dairy stuff (law percentage of fat)that can stay for days without refrigirator. Does anyone know if one is alowed to bring some dairy food in his troly to France? and how about few fruits for the first two days? If anyone has good advices for the dieting travler in Frnce - that would be great. I'll apreciate your quick answer, Shilo.

Dear Shilo,

It is against French law for visitors to diet. :)

Seriously, unless you will be in meetings all day and won't get to sightsee, you will probably lose weight in France.

Also, there is no need for you to bring your own diet foods. The French are capable of supplying your needs at groceries and markets - if (sacre bleu!) that is what you wish to do.

You can get plenty of fruit in France, why bring your own. Besides, I wouldn't bring any fruit into any country.

As to "low fat" you probably won't find much, but there is plenty of salad and salad and salad and fruit and fruit and fruit you can eat to your hearts content, and, of course, there's fish to eat.

Besides, I've yet to put on an ounce on any trip to France or elsewhere during a vacation. You're so busy, walking a lot and not having time to snack, invariably, many people loose (or maintain) weight without even trying.

You may get an answer from someone who really knows. But if not, this might help:

In theory, all EU countries have the same rules on what you can import from outside the EU. Those rules, as interpreted by the UK government, are at http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/ille...allowances.htm. This site also has links to the (english-language)EU source site.

In practice, rules - and their interpretation - can vary between countries. And EU Customs officials very rarely examine passengers unless they really believe a seriously illegal (= guns or drugs) import is taking place

But why, oh why, would anyone go to the trouble of bringing dairy products or fruit from abroad to France of all places?

Surrender monkeys they may be. But they're cheese-eating SM's.

PS
I've yet to find a French supermarket that wasn't stacked to the rafters with low-fat dairy products.

Just check the nutritional panel on the side of the pack for full fat, carbohydrate etc content.

Dear Shilo,

The following thought occurred to me.

How would you feel if you spent a few days in France on a diet and then was hit by a truck and died without having savored real French food?

Save your dieting for when you return home.

There's plenty of good fruit readily available in France, or at least it was in the parts of France I visited. I usually bought it at street markets, but there were also little stores that sold only fruit, like the ones in Italy. In France it was much easier to buy a piece of fruit on a whim, without making a special trip to some distant store, than where it is in the part of the US where I live.

Ira...

You are a Treasure!