What amazes me about Belgians is that they are on average, quite fit and healthy, but their cuisine is exceptionally unhealthy. Or especially awesome, depending on how you look at it.

During the short time I spent in Antwerp, all the food I consumed fell into the following categories: mayonnaise, french fries, beer, burgers, cigarettes, steak, gravy and croissants. That’s pretty much it, and yes, it was fucking amazing. Eating a steak drenched in gravy, smothered with mayonaisse-soaked fries and washing it down with a mug of buttery Belgian beer, is perhaps the greatest experience one’s taste buds and artery’s could ever imagine. Top that off with a cigarette, and you’ve reconstructed the cloggerific ecstasy of golden-age consumerism before things like “cancer” and “heart attacks” factored into our lifestyle choices.

But why then, if Belgian cuisine is so glutton-centric, are Belgians not immobile, hackalung slobs? It’s a mystery really, one that I don’t care to explore beyond the minimal amounts of research (drinking in pubs and glancing at the locals between glugs of Jupiler) I’ve already conducted. But I think the Belgian diet is going to be a new trend once people realize they can, hypothetically, drink gravy-flavoured beer and eat beer-flavoured steak and still maintain a healthy figure.