Ditch the detox and pour a red

A life-changing event occurred about 15 years ago when two eminent doctors (from Boston and Lyon) published detailed research showing that a diet of foie gras and red wine was actually good for you rather than bad. The result was an enormous boom in the consumption of red wine, led by those health-conscious, jogging Americans. The world has never looked back - but occasionally we need to be reminded.

The study, conducted over many years, found that the incidence of coronary disease was highest in North America, and substantially lower in southwest France where eating and drinking habits were completely different. North Americans had, on average, six meals a day, lasting between 10 and 15 minutes. Their French counterparts had three, lasting nearly an hour each. Americans ate lots of processed foods and dairy products, while the French preferred seasonal fresh food containing fats that our tummies could digest without causing cholesterol levels to sky-rocket.

A few glasses of red wine were found to aid digestion and release mineral supplements and antioxidants (which clear rather than clog our arteries) into our blood stream. These antioxidants are known as polyphenols and are found mostly in big, robust, tannic French red wines, particularly from the Rhone Valley, Bordeaux and the Languedoc.

There was a good deal of controversy surrounding these rather pleasant findings, naturally: funding for the project was withdrawn and the American wine industry lobbied to put 'red wine is healthy' labels on their bottles. It was even suggested by the Temperance movement that the French had fiddled their statistics!

I had the pleasure, however, of having a good 'French Paradox' dinner with the Boston professor in France while he was on a lecture tour. He confessed, in a rather embarrassed manner, that he had discovered another contributing factor to explain why the French were so healthy: it was that all self-respecting French people do a certain something between 'cinq et sept' after leaving the office that involves fairly vigorous exercise, and no doubt helps work off all that foie gras and red wine from lunchtime.

So, the message to us all this January must be to eat good fresh food and drink lots of red wine - and be as amorous as possible. It will make mid-winter and the difficult times ahead a lot more fun. ·