Italians put on an extra two kilos over the holiday period and must now mend their nutritional ways in order to get back into form, according to the Coldiretti farmers' union.
The union estimated that over the holidays Italians consumed an average of between 15,000 and 20,000 extra calories each, mostly from sweets, cold cuts and alcohol, while shunning more beneficial foods like fruits and vegetables.
Coldiretti calculated that over the holidays Italians consumed over 100 million kilos of pandoro and panettone Christmas cakes, 60 million bottles of sparkling wine, 20,000 tonnes of pasta and eight million tonnes of Christmas sausage and dried fruits, along with tonnes of meat, cold cuts, cheese and sweets for a value of over five billion euros.
This ''nutritional disorder,'' observed Coldiretti, was aggravated by the fact that people moved about less, spending more time at the table or sitting and chatting with family and friends, and thus had little occasion to work off the extra calories consumed.
In order to get back into shape, Coldiretti has drawn up a list of foods which should feature in all post-holiday diets, especially fruit - oranges, apples, pears and kiwi - and vegetables - spinach and other greens, radishes, squash, zucchini, salad, fennel and carrots.
Salad and other fresh vegetables, Coldiretti said, should be dressed with olive oil and plenty of squeezed lemon juice, which helps rid the body of toxins, cleans the blood and helps settle the stomach.
