Italian World Cup viewers should shun snacks and graze on fresh fruit and salad if they don't want to get fat watching the Azzurri's heroics, Italian farmers say.
According to farmers' assocation Coldiretti, the four-week tournament will put around 5kg on the midriffs of the average armchair fan unless he changes his stress-related munching habits.
Instead of crisps, chocolate, ice-cream and the like, Coldiretti recommends a number of seasonal favourites like strawberries, water-melons, peaches, apricots, carrots and lettuce. "Peaches quench your thirst without overloading the
stomach and liver while apricots and carrots are full of vitamin A which is essential for tired eyes, " Coldiretti said.
Water-melons, which are 95% water, help remove toxins from the body while strawberries have been shown to cut cholesterol and are rich in vitamin C, "which boosts the body's natural defences" when soccer stress may leave it vulnerable.
But the best antidotes to high blood pressure, jangled nerves and heart flutters appear to be melons and lettuce, Coldiretti said. Melons, as well as having "modest laxative properties," give off a smell that "appears to have positive effects on
the nervous system".
Lettuce, on the other hand, is "very effective for heart and circulation problems" and, for the celebrating hordes who take to the streets on fuming scooters and cars, "is rich in vitamin E which protects the blood and other parts of the body from the effects of smog".
