The food we bring to the table reveals the culture of a country and its people.

Peru is no exception and its cuisine tells of the many cultural influences that the country has undergone over the years. Local restaurants offer flavors and contaminations of different cuisines, from Japanese to Spanish, to North American and finally to Italian, our country that Peruvians love. Therefore, at dinner at the same table, it was not unusual to see different customers served sashimi or marinated fresh fish tartare (Japanese cuisine), chicken in barbecue sauce (North American cuisine), pasta or pizza (Italian cuisine), quinoa and shrimp soup. (Spanish paella style) and grilled alpaca meat (Peruvian cuisine).

Healthy or unhealthy? Peruvian cuisine is very genuine, as it is rich in nutraceutical ingredients, that is, with nutritional and healing potential, such as onion, fresh local fish, lime, quinoa, avocado and numerous spices. Therefore I had a lot of fun tasting the great variety on offer and had no difficulty in continuing my healthy habits during the trip.
 

Overweight in Peru is widespread.
You will say to me: "Why, did you just tell us that they have genuine recipes and ingredients?" The main reasons for this problem are:

- Many of the genuine ingredients are offered and eaten fried. Meat, potatoes, eggs, sweets are often eaten fried because they are tastier.
- Peruvians love the sweet taste and accompany their meals with sugary drinks. Among these, the best known are Coca Cola and Inka Cola: the sweet taste facilitates the consumption of onion or fish chevice with a sour taste because it is marinated in lime. Therefore the nutraceutical power of these foods is rendered null by the acidifying and inflammatory potential of carbonated drinks.
- They hardly engage in physical activity. In Peru you will only see people with greater culture and social class running as they are more informed about the value of exercise. Most of the lower-income ordinary population runs just to be able to work and admits to being lazy.
- There is no food culture. Ordinary people are not aware of the link between bad eating habits and disease and believe that getting sick is normal and age-related.

This is why they promote on local TV slimming products based on medical herbs (widely used since pre-Inca civilizations to treat any type of symptom or disease) when instead it would be enough to avoid or limit the causes of generalized overweight.

I conclude with a roundup of dishes that I have tasted and that I recommend to all of you, both for the nutritional value and for the peculiarities of flavors. 

It is forbidden to accompany meals with carbonated drinks. Prefer wine, local beer or the characteristic Chica, an alcoholic drink made from fermented black corn If you prefer to avoid alcoholic beverages you can try its non-alcoholic version of Chica called Chica Morada (it has an intermediate flavor between grape juice and cranberry juice ), lemonade made with lime or energizing mint tea. Personally, I have also often opted for a fresh bottle of strictly bottled water (a trick that is always useful abroad)