Belgium’s 6 unhealthiest foods

According to a study published in February, Belgium has one of the least healthy diets in the world. In a review of surveys that represented nearly 90 percent of the world’s adult population, the Global Burden of Diseases Nutrition and Chronic Diseases Expert Group (NutriCoDE) analysed the consumption of 17 common food items – from whole grains, fruits and vegetables to processed meats and sugary drinks – across 197 countries.

The results: Belgium was found to have the third least healthy consumption habits. Only Armenia and Hungary had less healthy diets.

In general it was found that Western countries consumed more of the “bad” highly processed foods, with Belgium scoring particularly high. However, this doesn’t necessarily reflect the overall nutritional health of the countries, just the types of foods the people are most typical consuming. In fact, the top 10 countries with the healthiest food habits were largely in some of the worlds most food-insecure regions, with Chad leading the list.

In general, Belgium is on the lower end of European countries in overweight and obesity rates (hovering just below 50% of the population). Still, one must admit there are a few Belgian staples that are not winning any healthy eating contests.

Here are six of Belgium’s least healthy foods that we’re happy to eat. After all, all things in moderation, even moderation, as they say.

1. Fries

Of course, most items off the chip shop menu could make the list. We’ll stick with the classics, as they are the most common offenders.

What could make strips of potato deep-fried twice in animal lard any less healthy? Why smothering it with mayonnaise of course. Do this, and you have the glorious fry, the most iconic of Belgian foodstuffs.

A little boat of fries with mayonnaise hovers around 600 calories, give or take, and offers 35 grams of fat. If that’s all you have for dinner, then your waistline can probably handle the occasional indulgence, but add a couple of pintjes or another item or two off the chip shop menu and you’re looking at pretty unhealthy meal.

2. Waffles

Another Belgian icon, the mouth-watering waffle, whether in Brussels or Liege form, is far from a health food. Flour, butter, milk and sugar and little else make up this sweet, gooey snack in all its wonderfully gridded glory.

On their own, the Brussels variety have a few fewer calories, since they’re less dense and miss the pearls of sugar added to the type coming from Liege. However, they’re also usually piled high with whipped cream, chocolate sauce or an endless combination of these and many of sugary toppings.

3. Lotus speculoos spread

What is better than the sweet and spiced perfection of a speculoos biscuit? Said biscuits ground up into a paste and spread over a slice of fresh bread – think peanut butter, but made from cookies.

This is the gift that Lotus gave us in the first decade of the 21st century. It’s rich, creamy, delicious, and two spoons of this stuff, about 30 grams, give you about 20% of your daily fat intake. But who can stop at just two spoons?

4. Oliebollen

A Belgian treat found at any carnival, oliebollen or smoutenbollen in Dutch, or croustillons in French, are melt-in-your-mouth gobs of dough chucked into a deep-fryer till they’re perfectly browned and crisp on the outside and warm and gooey on the inside, and then dusted with powdered sugar.

They’re unlikely to be an everyday food, but they still offer little as far as nutrition goes beyond calories, fat and a spike in blood sugar. Best save them for a yearly treat at the Gentse Feesten.

5. Bicky burger

When a burger gets its own website and Facebook page, you know it’s reached a certain level of stardom. Meet the bicky burger: while virtually unknown outside of Belgium, it has a broad and dedicated following among youths and adults alike throughout the country.

Found in any chip shop window, the classic bicky burger involves a pre-frozen ground meat patty (which Ilovebelgium.be notes is “a mix between chicken, pork and horse meat”) fried and laid on a sesame seed bun – yes, it sounds like a hamburger. So what makes this beloved burger more than just a burger?

The secret is in the sauce, of course. Bicky burgers are topped the eponymous bicky sauces – the yellow bicky dressing, the red bicky ketchup and the brown bicky spicy sauce – which together form a holy trinity of sweet, sour and spicy. It’s garnished with fried onions and maybe some cucumber.

The burger alone is not exactly a light meal, but add hefty portions of each of the sauces, and you start to tip the scales on your daily calorie, fat and sodium intake.

6. Nutella

Yes, the entire world eats Nutella; however the Belgians are particularly enthusiastic about the chocolate and hazelnut spread. For many, a layer of it spread on two slices of bread – or four, or six – is considered a balanced breakfast or lunch (or dinner, as long as you’ve “eaten warm” – had a warm meal – earlier in the day).

“But it has hazelnuts! And calcium!” the masses may decry. Nevertheless, a quick glimpse at the Nutella label reveals its main ingredients are palm oil and sugar. Really it’s a sugared palm oil spread with hazelnut and cocoa powder flavourings, and some would say more akin to chocolate icing than a nutritious spread.

Spoon for spoon, Nutella has a higher calorie punch than peanut butter. And while it has notably less fat (though those should be natural fats in a high quality peanut butter), it boasts 11g of sugar to peanut butter’s 1g. That will certainly give you energy in the morning, though you might be dozing by lunch time. 

Photo © Jmh2o