The French are famously able to have their gateaux and eat it, too – to enjoy an apparently indulgent diet without damaging their health. In 1980, scientists even coined an expression for this remarkable contradiction: the French paradox. It referred to the fact that in the UK and US, where saturated fat consumption was roughly the same as France, the death rate from heart disease was higher. Researchers attributed this to the French love of red wine, a source of heartprotective plant compounds.