What Makes the Mediterranean Diet so Marvelous?

Yes, it’s been around for years…well, centuries actually, if you consider that the people who live along the Mediterranean have been eating this way forever.  It achieved widespread prominence in North America in the 1990s, although its virtues had been extolled in a work by biologist Ancel Keys and his chemist wife, Margaret, in 1975 and later, in a report known as the Seven Countries Study, published in 1980.  But I’m getting ahead of myself, let’s first discuss where it came from (its name is your first clue), its key components, and finally, its health benefits.

Origins

The origins of the Mediterranean diet could be traced back as far as the Middle Age (roughly 1100-1453) eating habits of those who lived along the Mediterranean coast in present day Greece, Southern Italy, Sicily, and Spain.  Closer to our own time, researchers in the late-20^th century studied the diet of those who lived along the Mediterranean and noticed a paradox. While Mediterranean costal residents consumed large amounts of fat, they had far lower incidents of cardiovascular disease than those who lived in, say, the United States which had similar levels of fat consumption.

After the works by the Keys and the Seven Countries Study were published, Walter Wilett and others, from Harvard’s School of Public Health, studied this paradox further and created what has since become known as the Mediterranean diet in the 1990s.  They concluded that while those along the Mediterranean consumed relatively high levels of fat, they were not consuming unhealthy fats, such as saturated and trans fats.  Since the 1990s, the Mediterranean diet has become quite popular and has been labeled, by some, as a fad diet.  However, numerous studies have linked it to various health benefits.

Key Components

While many publications have come up with their own variation of the Mediterranean diet, it consists primarily of plant-based foods, such as fruits, vegetables, unprocessed grains, legumes, and nuts.  Below are some other essential components:

• As mentioned above, the Med diet is one based on the consumption of things that grow from the ground, such as greens, quinoa, beans, and fruits, with nuts consumed primarily as snacks.
• Replace butter/margarine with healthy fats, primarily olive and canola oil.
• Use herbs and spices to flavor your food rather than salt.
• Reduce your consumption of red meat to just a few servings per month.
• Consume fish, especially those high in omega-3 fatty acids, such as herring, sardines, albacore tuna, salmon, mackerel, and lake trout, at least twice per week. Some versions permit the substitution of baked or broiled poultry.
• Drink red wine in moderation (generally, a single glass with dinner).
• Dairy consumption should be reduced low-fat, high protein yogurt and milk.
• Consume your meals, whenever possible, with friends and/or family. Enjoy their company and savor your meals…slowly.

Health Benefits

There are numerous and varied studies that discuss various health benefits associated with the Mediterranean diet.  However, it must be stated that most of these studies were conducted on people who had been eating in this manner for extended periods of time, in some cases, their entire lives.  In other words, “diet” is not the proper choice to describe what is a lifestyle.  Diet implies that it’s a temporary change in eating habits.  However, to derive the below health benefits, one must adopt these eating habits for life.

• Reduces the risk of heart disease and promotes better cardiovascular health.
• Lowers levels of LDL (the bad type) cholesterol.
• Reduced risk of cardiovascular mortality and overall mortality.
• Lowered incidences of some types of cancer and Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases.
• When combined with moderate levels of exercise, weight loss and reduced rates of type 2 diabetes.

Here are some Med diet recipes from a reputable source, the Mayo Clinic: https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/mediterranean-diet-recipes/art-20046682

There you have it, everything you need to know about the lifestyle change that is the Mediterranean diet.  Buona mangiata!