Day 12: The secret to being Scandi slim isn’t willpower

A girl can dream… Or move to Norway.

A well-travelled bartender in the Scottish Highlands once remarked, “Norway is just Scotland, but healthier. People are so much thinner!”

At the time, I assumed she meant Norwegians drink less, which I know isn’t true after helping a group of them demolish bucket cocktails on a beach in Thailand many moons ago.

She wasn’t wrong, though. They are thinner. But now that I’m here, I’ve realised alcohol is only part of the equation.

The real secret to a slim waistline?

Make food so bloody expensive that no one can afford to eat.

See, Australia’s epidemic of mum bods and dad guts isn’t caused by a lack of time, or toddlers who kick off every time you suggest a hike. It’s because food is cheaper than therapy. It’s financially more responsible to eat your feelings than to pay someone to unpack them.

But maybe Coles and Woolies have been trying to help us all along. Maybe when they jacked up a block of Cadbury to $7, it wasn’t price gouging – it was a public health intervention. Cozzie lives isn’t a crisis. It’s a crash diet.

Anyway.

A large matcha latte with oat milk in Oslo? $12.95 AUD. That’s nearly double Sydney’s $7.
I googled “cheap eats near Oslo Central” and was promptly served a $26 burrito, like a backhanded slap from the diet gods. Tighten that waistline, you emotional snacker. Be like the tall, glowing Norwegians!

So we pivoted. Straight to the supermarket.

And that’s where I met the saddest fruit in the nation: a single, bunchless banana, flying solo. $5. For one banana. Mate, how do people survive here?

But then – salvation. Front and centre at Matkroken Steen & Strøm, just around the corner from the Bob W, like a beacon from the gods of cost-effective roughage, was a Sizzler-esque salad bar. No breadsticks, but a glistening array of greens, protein, pickles, and promise.

The trick? You fill a big tub and only pay for the weight. It’s like pay-as-you-go for lettuce and meatballs. Half a tub? Roughly $12AUD. Full tub? Probably a second mortgage, but we didn’t test that theory.

Pro tip: don’t go rogue with extras. That tub will not fit in the mini-fridge at Bob W.