Interesting information about Germans

Delynn and I were watching a TV show the other evening and thought that our friends back in the States (and elsewhere around this ever-smaller globe) would be interested in this information. The program is called Galileo and is a Discovery-channel like show. Sometimes they do challenges, like having teams try to build a stove out of old junk-yard parts and see which one will fry a steak successfully. Well, one of the segments in last week's show was What Germans Eat. Now, cousin Donna will tell you that our family is obsessed about eating (and I grow to be more in agreement with her...) so this was a topic that caught my eye. There were some surprising items in the list, so here goes.

10. Pasta: the average Germans eats 7 kg (15.4 pounds) of pasta and noodles per year.

9. Chocolate: 9 kg (19.8 lbs) per year. This is 1.65 POUNDS per month! The Walz's in Germany are doing our level best to meet or beat this average.

8. Eggs: 12 kg (26.4 lbs) This surprised us a bit, but they do eat a lot of soft-boiled eggs for breakfast.

7. Fish: 15.5 kg (34.1 lbs - about 10.5 oz per week). Speaking of fish, I was able to show Delynn some whole smoked eel at the market yesterday. She wasn't too keen on it. I guess one could classify eel as fish...

6. Cheese: 22 kg (48.4 lbs) Nearly a pound per week of cheese. It must be all of the walking that keeps people slim.

5. Meat: (big jump) 60 kg (132 lbs) This still works out to a little less than 6 ounces per day. They further broke that down into types: 40 kg pork; 10 kg beef and 10 kg chicken. Given that Germany produces over 1,500 varieties of sausage, it is not terribly difficult to imagine the current pork consumption levels. Also, pork is the least expensive meat at the market. Fresh boneless, skinless chicken breasts cost €10/kg. Rather than leave that as an exercise to the reader, it works out to $7.18/pound. We bought pork for schnitzel last week that was 40% of the cost of chicken. Granted it was on sale, but even regular price is closer to 50%. We can find frozen, processed and boxed chicken for €8/kg. Good thing we like wurst!

4. Potatoes: 63 kg (138.6 lbs) per year. Not a big surprise here. One of our favorite ways to consume potatoes is called Roesti - a specialty of the Alsace region of Germany, France & Switzerland. The basic Roesti is a large pancake of finely shredded potato which fills the entire bottom of the frying pan. The number of different accompaniements can fill a cookbook (and they literally do). Onions, diced pork and cheese are favorites in the region.

3. Vegetables: 84 kg (184.8 lbs) Of course, with the excellent variety of fresh veggies available at the weekly markets, it is not hard to believe this. We love buying from the farmer's that grow the food themselves. It is just beginning to be asparagus (Spargel) season. Europeons treasure white asparagus - a larger variety than its green counterpart most often found in the States. Apparently, as the asparagus grows, the farmers mound the soil higher and higher to keep it from being exposed to direct sunlight. This keeps the asparagus from turning green. Another interesting item is that vegetables in the supermarket have the country of origin listed as part of the description. So, you can tell if that tomato came from Germany or Israel.

2. Bread: 87 kg (191.4 lbs). Ummmmm bread. The bread here is so fantastic. Luckily, the bread options in the States are getting better but they still don't compare. We, for instance, have 4 different bakeries within two blocks of our apartment. Bakeries are one of the few places allowed to open on Sunday, so we can get fresh bread any day of the week. And much of the bread is whole-grained, which is much more robust than much of what we have found in the States.

And the number one item? This one surprised us a bit also - especially the amount.

1. Fruit: 122 kg (268.4 lbs) per year. This is nearly 3/4 of a pound of fruit per day. Their favorites are similar to Americans: strawberries, bananas and apples. I wonder if this counts the fruit in ice cream. Hmmm. Our friend Karin's favorite snack is dried apricots and it is not at all unusual to see Germans eat an apple for a break or while walking down the street.

I poked around the web a bit to see if I could find a similar breakdown of what Americans eat but could only find stories that we don't eat enough fruits and veggies. Actually, it looks like the folks here do a good job of following the USDA food pyramid. Interesting.

On a note totally unrelated to food, our Oberbürgermeister (mayor) of Weil am Rhein, Wolfgang Dietz, was elected to a second 8 year term of office with over 99% of the vote. Herr Dietz is well liked and one of his many accomplishments in his first term was to balance the budget. Wouldn't it be nice if we in America had such lofty convictions. The main opposition party (SPD) also felt that he is such a good Oberbürgermeister that they didn't even place a candidate to compete against him. Personnally, we are also grateful to Herr Dietz because he is a huge supporter of international education and of the Rhein International Academy. He was personally involved in bringing RIA to Weil a. Rh.

We will update everyone this coming week on the number of pages the students read in our Reading Challenge (a.k.a. 'Will Mr. Walz shave his head? Challenge'). Due to the two week Easter holiday, we extended the reading period until tomorrow. We shall see... I seem to be growing more fond of my hair as the results get closer.

Love to all!