What is the Mediterranean Diet?
Eating the Healthy Mediterranean Way, Fresh, Seasonal and Local
Jul 14, 2009
The Mediterranean diet has long been reported on and promoted as the way to go – the best diet available but what in terms of daily food intake is it?
What Foods are in the Mediterranean Diet?
The Mediterranean diet or way of eating is actually very simple. It consists of plenty of fresh produce that were produced in the vegetable garden, so foods that were in season were those consumed.
Ways of preserving the glut of seasonal foods were mainly drying or salting, both healthy methods of preserving without added chemicals and allowing healthy food to be eaten out of season.
The diet is mainly plant-based with lots fruits and vegetables, nuts, grains, seeds, beans and olive oil. Eggs, dairy produce and poultry that were reared at home were regularly on the table and if you lived near the sea fish played a large part in the diet too.
Chicken, rabbit and pork were the main meats which again were home reared and fed on grass and leftovers not commercial feed.
Fats other than olive oil were very sparse and refined foods a non-existent luxury. So that’s what we need to follow today fresh local in –season fruit and vegetables, pulses and nuts and less meat, especially red meat.
What should be added is a glass of red wine or two with our meal and a family gathering of relaxation, enjoyment and above all time. Take your time over a meal, time to relax, savour and enjoy the food lovingly prepared. There is no rush to get meal times over, it’s a form of entertainment that has been largely lost from Western lives and values today.
Where Did the Term Mediterranean Diet Come From?
The Mediterranean Diet is based on the dietary traditions of Greece, Crete and Southern Italy around the 1960s, when the lowest rates of chronic disease and the longest life expectancy was discovered in the people there.
Sadly these days that renowned healthy eating, along with the healthy population has declined rapidly.
People in the Mediterranean Countries Live Longer
Or they did! The longevity of the Mediterranean is greater than most other areas and the British medical journal BMJ, who published a review of their studies into the Mediterranean diet and found that it’s associated with significant health benefits, which include lower rates of heart disease, cancer, Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s.
For more information visit the on Mediterranean Diet studies or to see a food pyramid table visit the Oldways Web site.
