The Mediterranean Diet

The Mediterranean diet, refers to, naturally, the traditional diet of people who live on the Mediterranean sea. There is a a pleasant near-irony in that Mediterranean food is some of the best in the world, but that it is also a healthy diet; the standard wisdom says that eating healthy means eating foods that don’t taste as good, or at least not as good as Italian cooking!

What’s In The Diet?

One of the paradoxes of the Mediterranean diet is that people from this region consume high levels of fat, they have much lower levels of cardiovascular diseases than the United States, where similar levels of fat are consumed. This paradox was one of the reasons the Mediterranean diet was studied in the first place, as scientist noticed the low death rates from heart disease of men from Crete. One study on the phenomenon, the ‘Lyon Diet Heart Study’ found such strong effects from this diet (an over 70% decrease in mortality for people who had already suffered a heart attack) that they stopped the study and published the results immediately as they thought it so important the people see the results!

The standard Mediterranean diet refers specifically to the diet of Greece and Southern Italy. It emphasizes lots of plants foods, especially fruits for dessert, lots of diary from cheese and yogurt, olive oil as the principal source of fat, moderate amounts of eggs and meat (more chicken and fish, slightly less red meat), and wine. As this diet arose from a society with lots of agriculture, regular physical activity such as farm labour is also seen as a key part of it.

The Basics: Olives And Wine

The Mediterranean diet contains total levels of fat of 25-35% of total calories, with saturated fats making up only a small part of this, as 8% or less of total calories. The diet is high in monounsaturated fat, and contains a lot of fibre. The olive oil may also be a reason for the lower levels of cardiovascular disease, as olive oil lowers cholesterol, blood sugar, and blood pressure, which especially significant compared to the animal fats more prominent in an American diet. Olive oil is also known to prevent and treat peptic ulcers, and may be a factor in preventing cancer. Wine, especially red, has also been shown to have positive effects on health (in moderation, of course), as it contains flavonoids, which have anti-oxidant properties.

Adding more of the Mediterranean to your diet is easy; there are lots of great dishes which can be made with these foods. And just taking from it is easy as well – it can just be as much as using less butter and animal fats, and more olive oil. There are plenty of great Greek or Italian recipes (other foods from the region can be similar; if you are looking to spice up your cooking, you could try foods from Turkey or Israel, for example), and much French food (the ‘French Paradox’ refers to the same phenomenon of eating lots of fat but having less cardiovascular disease) has many of the similar health effects.