Middle Easterners often describe Beirut as the culinary capital of the Middle East. But according to data from Lebanese researchers, most Beirutis consume a diet heavy on refined carbohydrates (white rice,white bread, and French fries), hardly ever eat fish, and almost never cook with olive oil. As a result, an increasing number of Lebanese have the same dietary problems as low-income populations of the West: obesity is growing, especially among children, and it won’t be long until Lebanon catches up to American levels of overweight. A few Lebanese experts are trying to improve this by promoting traditional diets. Find out more from Annia Ciezadlo, author of "Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love, and War,” a chronicle of civilian life in wartime Beirut and Baghdad, centered around food and culinary traditions. The New York Times described her book as “among the least political, and most intimate and valuable, to have come out of the Iraq war."