[img]96|left|||no_popup[/img]Dateline Jerusalem — Although people do belong to gyms here in Israel, not everyone can afford the luxury of being a member. My town has solved that problem. It built a road that circles the city. Adjacent to the road is a pedestrian path for those who want to jog or walk from one end to the other. Alongside the path are benches for those who are tired or who just want to enjoy the scenery. Between the benches are exercise machines!
The exercise equipment is brightly colored, like children's playground equipment, but for adult use only. Every morning on the way to work (usually around 7 a.m. when the heat and humidity are at their lowest) I observe men lifting leg weights or on their backs lifting arm weights. I see women “rowing” or using the machines targeting upper arms. There are so many kinds of gym equipment that work every muscle in the body. People use them and then go walking or jogging along the path to the next machine.
I am not one for exercise. Usually it makes me hungrier than usual (and no one can eat as much as I do). But when I see people really enjoying themselves on the gym equipment, I almost feel like joining in the fun. Of course, the lawyer in me keeps wondering whether the city realizes the potential liability for someone being injured working out without supervision on city-owned gym equipment. Perhaps personal injury law does not exist in Israel . I will have to check it out.
Me and My Narrow Shadow
I have never seen so many thin people as here in Israel. Perhaps it is because of all the fruit and vegetables that make up the Israeli diet. Breakfast usually consists of yogurt or a delicious soft, fruit-flavored cheese of yogurt consistency, unpeeled crispy Persian cucumbers that are the shape and size of pickles, cherry tomatoes that are a substitute for candy here, fresh hot baked bread or croissants, cheese or potato filled pockets of pastry called burekas, and sweetened, mud-like Turkish coffee. What a way to start the day.
Lunch or snack consists of deep-fried falafel balls (a batter of ground chick peas or garbanzo beans with spices) in a pita sandwich smothered with humus (a smooth,mayo-textured paste also made from garbanzo beans) and tehina (a thin sesame seed sauce) and filled with slices of fried eggplant, Israeli salad (finely chopped cucumbers and tomatoes with lemon juice and parsley), pickles, thick french fries, and a choice of other salads and spicy mixtures (like harissa, a hot pepper condiment) until the pita is overflowing. Another treat is shwarma, which is either lamb (my favorite) or turkey or chicken, which roasts on a vertical rotisserie spit until pieces are “shaved” off with roasted onions and put in a pita.
Paradise for Salad Lovers
Dinner at a restaurant consists of your table having small re-fillable dishes of every type of salad imaginable.
There are pickled beets, white cabbage in a vinaigrette, red cabbage slaw, corn and garbanzo beans and red bell peppers, fried eggplant, Moroccan eggplant salad, babaganoush (chopped eggplant and garlic in mayo or tehina), humus, tehina, Israeli salad, cucumbers and sliced onions in vinegar and sugar, cherry tomatoes with fresh basil and garlic and pine nuts, Moroccan spiced carrots, and other salads. Also, freshly baked bread and pitas are put on the table. All this before you even order dinner. Then for dinner you can get steak, lamb, chicken, duck, pasta and fish dishes.
Although the above does not sound like it is diet food, no one here seems to gain weight from it. I think it is because it is a very healthy food and the spices (like harissa) speed up the metabolism. Whatever the case, I am overweight because I came here that way, not because of the Israeli diet.
B'tayavon (bon appetite)!
L'hitraot. Shachar
Shachar is the Hebrew name of a California-based attorney and former Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy who moved to Israel 22 months ago.
