They're still looking for an explanation of why a high fat diet is healthy, but only in the French. What about the Swedes and other N. Europeans?

Ooooh I love Roquefort - I'm getting some today!

The comments are worth a read - I don't normally read a paper like the Telegraph, but there are some intelligent people there (even if they do vote Tory ) Ooops, sorry politics - I'll stop now.

But seriously, it's Saint André cheese. This is the fattest, richest, most delicious cheese I know of. When left out for a few hours, it's like butter. Of course, it's my favorite. In fact, I ate one today. 200g of pure delight.

Cheese in general is good for you, moulded or not.

I do love a good blue...Maytag especially. (American here) I've never tried a Roquefort but now will search out the French cave kind. Thanks for the post, Demi..

As far as I understood, a good scientist would generally argue that there are very rarely single individual causes for any given phenomenon.

This seems to be a case of not being terribly scientific to me.

This kind of blue cheese - the Roquefort - has a VERY strong flavour and I simply can't imagine that every single French person likes the stuff!!! And, what's more, I guess that even those who do eat it probably don't eat it by the bucketload on a daily basis.

It is simply ludicrous to think that one single food item could be responsible for the better health of the French.

Over the last few years during which I've frequented this forum there have regularly been reports published here linking the good health of the French to individual discrete items. I believe there was once an article about a particular kind of cognac - maybe it was Armignac??? - being responsible for the French Paradox. And, of course, red wine has also been singled out. I cannot believe that every single Frenchman and every single Frenchwoman likes cognac, red wine and Roquefort cheese.

I believe that the reason the French - still? - enjoy somewhat better health is that their diet is more traditional than elsewhere.

For example, on a French dining table you will still find the whole gamut of fatty meat products; all the rich dairy products (cream, cheese, crème fraîche, and so on and the traditional French diet also includes cuts of animals that are unheard of elsewhere, such as liver and other offal, and the use of gelatine in things like head cheese.

The French also eat fruit and vegetables when they are in season.

I would bet my bottom dollar that the consumption of packaged, highly-processed foods is way lower in France than it is in the USA or the UK.

Surely it is a combination of all these differences which adds up to the phenomenon of the French "paradox"?

I am sure that the other countries mentioned in this thread (Sweden, for example) also still have a more traditional food culture.

As soon as Big Food and the giant food and beverage chains sink their teeth into a population, then things start going downhill with people's health.

When people start switching from fresh produce bought at local markets which they prepare at home themselves from scratch to store-bought ready meals or junk food bought at McDonald's and KYC, then they start to get fatter.

I do believe there are also other factors involved, but the lack of Roquefort cheese in people's diets is NOT the one single cause of the obesity problem and the high heart attack rate outside of France.

amanda

I agree, Amanda. They're not even looking at the whole cheese either, just a tiny amount of a specific substance found in that cheese. As if a tiny amount of anything could somehow make a very large difference at the population level. And it's not like the substance they found there can't be found anywhere else. We are talking about a paradox, an anomaly after all. A paradox is an extraordinary circumstance, therefore an extraordinary explanation must be found to explain it. However, the paradox is born not out of the facts, but out of the hypothesis. So instead of trying to find a second hypothesis to explain the paradox, we could use a different starting hypothesis that includes this paradox, but removes its paradoxical nature, thus making it just plain normal instead. We do have such a hypothesis, but it's not yet mainstream.

Are they implying that it is the Penicillium roqueforti that is responsible for the health of the French? If so, why wouldn't the same effect be seen with Stilton and Dana Bleu? They all have the same fungus.

After all, it was one of the first antibiotics...