Polish Eating Habits

yes... with mashed potatoes... ;)


i had to choose between carrots plus ranch dressing...
:)

A fine Polish Twist!

Americans like potatoes with bread... which i found strange at first...

Yeah, lots of starch there....

JumpinJuniper

I'm happy I'm not alone! My brother and I are like this. If I miss a meal, I get cranky :(

It's terrible to hear all of this hatred of fat people. I am Polish and I have to admit to being quite overweight. The problem is, I am walking all the time in the subway and over land. I do eat a lot of sausages and potatoes though. I remember an account I read of a German travellor to the Vistula delta area in the mid 1700s who mentioned that they Poles there were the absolute fattest people he ever saw. What changed?

just add some steamed cabbage to the meal and you'll be fine :)

^^^ vodka.. don't forget it. :)

Also have a weakness for pickles and beer. Maybe it is the second breakfast and the third lunch which is my problem.

Babinich wrote:


interesting comment.

i remember the first few weeks I spent in Poland at my school. i was simply baffled by what the other teachers were eating during the day between classes. breakfast was almost always some sort of donut/pastry looking thing, and lunch time it wasn't uncommon to see more than one teacher munching on a prince polo or a snickers bar. I simply never saw this in America and it was so bizarre to see people eating candy bars as if they were real wholesome food.

as a teenager and young college student in America, I worked in a deli for several years and saw what people ate all day long. when it comes to sweets and chocolate especially, polish people simply eat more of it and more often....regardless of the time of day.

yes, but that is all they eat.. ;) :D

I don't agree. Poles eat very healthy food and compared to Britain or America they're slimmer and healthier. What's more not only do they eat healthy food but also they do not eat too much.

Hmmm, don'y know about that. Are bigos, smoked kiełbasy and pirogi necessarily "healthy"?? Perhaps if the cabbage's organic, that's better than nothing. While I love Polish cooking, I find it pretty stick-to-the-ribs cuisine, similar to German, so I'd guess that compared with Indian, Turkish or Japanese, Polish cooking might appear to be the porverbial heart attack on a plate-:))LOL

Woj, I agree with Lyzko here. I'll give you some examples of why. Today, I had what I typically have at the dinner table. Szałot (Silesian potato salad) started things off and there is plenty mayo mixed in for taste. Then there was the cold cuts platter. Bread (calorific) with butter and meat on the top. After that, the sausages were brought out and they were dripping with fat. Not to mention the cakes that are full of sugar. Hardly healthy.

I tend to eat a 'Russian' meal in tomato slices (peeled skins) with chopped up onions. It is easy to digest and low in fat. Too many Polish meals are calorific. I'm 102kgs and I can tell you that the majority of guests present were bigger in the sense of being disproportionate. I see many Poles getting bigger and bigger.

Unhealthy = delicious, at least in Silesian cooking. All these roladas, kluski, buchty and the thick sauces mniam mniam...

True enough :) Beef rolls with 'modro' cabbage and dumplings :) Those yeasty rolls (buchty) are great with fruits of the forest yoghurt. Silesian sour rye soup (żurek) is the best, IMHO. Much better than the way those from Warsaw do it. It is more sour here and with egg :)

I think Hobbits are pretty good with garlic. Polish people do eat them but swan is the main dish.

Sadly, it might be so. I just hope they will not get as fat and disproportional as here. My family members still keep in shape, a couple of them only slightly plump but far from obese. As long as people keep active the food should not be a problem. Poles still tend to do a lot of home cooking and it beats the ready made so called fat free stuff. I think the fat free food is such a scam, it makes people eat more. It is the little bit of fat in diet that keeps your palate satisfied longer.

All my family members are fat except for me ; o I don't wanna get fat !!!! : (

Seriously, I would be interested.......What time do polish people eat. It's too early isnt it?

I like to eat late about 9 or 10 pm, my polish friends get home then eat immediately, it seems, most northern Europeans do that. I like to have a bite when I get in then do stuff, eating dinner later without interruptions during cooking and actual dinner.

Too early? I wouldn't say so. Some start work at 7, some at 8 so they work round that accordingly.

They tend to have more in-between food. They tend to eat lunch at around 3pm or when they return from work.

It's often said that it's not good to eat your main meal later, because it gives your body less time to work it off. Sadly I do the same, just because I don't have time to prepare a proper meal when I am out of the house for 12-13 hours at a time. But really, eating in the middle of the afternoon is, according to an article I read, a healthier option.

Also, we have had lots of comment about how unhealthy Polish food is. But people forget, that it's not just the type of food that makes people fat and unhealthy. It's the amount that is ingested, when you eat, how much you excercise on a daily basis (and I am not just talking about the gym, but walking, stairs, etc) and a whole host of other factors.

Coming from Scotland, I see plenty more overweight people in the street there, because of a diet of chips (french fries for the benifit of our friends across the pond) and little/no excercise and a huge intake of sugar. Over here, it seems that yes, people eat a meal with fried meat, bread, potatoes and salads, but that is much more balanced than chips all the time. I still cringe inside when I walk past a new mother with her baby in the pram eating a bag of crisps or chips in Scotland.

More or less what I'm getting at is, saying Polish food is fatty is true (in some parts) but saying it's unhealthy, without thinking about other lifestyle factors, is not.

I quite like Polish food but I think many Poles are in denial as to the relative health of their diet. Pickled/preserved food features highly as does heavily salted stuff - both of which are not healthy.

NEVER heard of it. Potatoes and bread? How do you mean ? Actually putting the potatoes onto the bread? If so, I have never heard of it ANYWHERE in the USA.

Granted, MANY people in the USA are overweight. Mostly through their own diets and lack of movement. I ride a stationary bicycle every day in order to get the metabolism going :) and am not overweight at all.

I have been watching a lot of Polish television due to my move to Poland within a year. I see MANY overweight Poles on the news! Let's hope it doesn't become a trend.

All in all though, most Poles are in respectable shape in comparison to other nationalities.

I hope I don't put on weight considering all the GREAT Polish food I am looking forward to. I do eat a LOT of Polish dishes now but, I think they will taste better in Poland :)

Czesc

Heh I can never tire of saying how much I like to eat picked items, sausages and heavy breads. All posts about food sound heavenly. I think if i was assimilated, you would be able to tell me as non-Polish by the portions and amount of fish I eat as well. Seems not as big an item with general Polish as far as I can tell here.

Searched for a thread to Necro as preferred; rather than start anew:

Do other Americans (and our english speaking counterparts in UK & Oz) Feel like a Hun eating next to your EU friend/mate even if you are not overweight?

I wonder how much more budget I'd need to eat the way I do? <_<
I will actually faint in the midday if my portions fall below 1800 ca for the day ( I tried to be on that atkins diet to help my BF at the time stick to his diet. OMG! Mis-stake!)

Still.....when my fiance' and I eat meals together via video.. He brings a plate that barely has enough food to keep my 7 yr old alive. With exception of Pizza or Potato chips(crisps). But though the slice is large, he eats only one. I also notice whatever chicken their KFC uses looks like game hens compared to what I bring home from KFC.

I will admit that most his diet choices are atypical because of serious allergies, he doenst eat the full meal with family most days. At first, when we were still only good buds; I was embarrassed and would consume a good half my meal as I walked the hallway to return to call. I eat like a winter wolf if I don't force myself to relax.

I notice he eats 2 more times in the day and they break up their meals into something like courses. Eating each item as ready rather than awiting for all to be put on plate at once. One would say he 'eats like a bird'

In reality it is I, who eats like a bird.. a REAL bird, and a good thing I have metabolism like a bird or i'd weigh more than my car! German food is like mana to me and from what I can see so shall Polish food be. I don't diet though I cut soda pop out and beer (I miss my good heavy ales) for all but special occasions since those are the only things that seem to affect my size in all but tiny amounts.

But he is boggled the first time he saw me bring a large (not supersize) drink home. And how large I say restaurant meat portions are or sandwiches.


LAWLZ..many meals incl in restaurants serve both potatoes and bread at same meal..
there is even dish that ladles chipped beef (also called affectionately **** On a Shingle. SOS) cooked in gravy over mashed potatoes and/or bread . Southerners especially will swab their rolls or cornbread in their gravy and mashed potatoes. ^_^ AS they enjoy their battered fried fish/meat, and battered fried bread (hushpuppies), okra, zuchinni and creamed green/corn/string beans. You will find SOS even in California in older established Diners. All across SW, South and as far up as West Virginny. It also was an Army favorite at chow.

Hello everyone!
I have read all your posts and all of you seem right and totally wrong in the Polish food vs. obesity debate!
Why. Poland's climate has an immense influence on eating habbits. So has the fact that Poles or Slavs in general developed and learned agriculture, fishery and holding animals early and were peasant tribes for a long time.

Slavs were not known as great builders, conquerers or tradesmen like other indoeuropean nations because their main interest lied in the pleasures of life instead of seeking realisation in "big things". Food has had a central cultural role as everything that happened has had its pinnacle around the table. The climate with its four distinct seasons created the need for food short term preservation methods that produced Polish dishes like Galaretki, Kiełbasy, Bigos, Kiszonki, etc. There was no need to dry or ferment fish like in Scandinavia or dry it like in say Caucasian countries. The soils in Poland are rich and the warm season long and so each time of year has its own dishes in relative abundance.

The eating habits that come from this abundance are comprehensible - you eat often and various foods.
But it needs to be said that there is a cultural ideal of well fed but not fat women. Only older married women had the priviledge of obesity.

Edit: professionalism, tradition and pleasures of life have been three central aspects of slavic civilisation and still are.

Smalec, boczek, majonez kielecki and kielbasa wiejska giv me now!
yum!