Mediterranean Diet

What Is The Mediterranean Diet?

The Mediterranean diet is a composite of the traditional cuisines of Spain, southern France, Italy, Greece, Crete and parts of the Middle East. It is a style of eating that emphasizes fruits and vegetables, dairy products and fresh fish. While it is not a weight-loss diet, studies suggest that shifting from a standard Western diet to this mode of eating may help you lose weight.

Health Benefits of This Diet

It is hard to overstate the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet. Compared to the Western diet, it is linked to a lower risk of death from heart disease and cancer, and a lower risk of metabolic syndrome. Other documented benefits include improvements in brain function, lower rates of chronic diseases, decreased blood pressure and reduced cholesterol, as well as protection from diabetes, depression, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and some dental problems. The diet also has been shown to lead to improvements in rheumatoid arthritis and eye health, healthier babies, improvements in fertility and lower risks of arthritis in men and of stroke in women, and better sleep and academic performance among teenagers. Research published in August 2018 showed that among 5,200 seniors (age 65 and older) those who most closely followed the Mediterranean diet had a four to seven percent lower risk of death over the eight-year study period.

Pros

• The Mediterranean diet is one of the world’s healthiest diets.
• Most people like it because it doesn’t stint on flavour and offers a wide range of health benefits.

Popularity of The Mediterranean Diet

Mediterranean Diet is

• No. 1 diet in Top 10 Best Overall Diets
• No.1 diet in Top 10 Best Diets for Healthy Eating (Tie)
• No.1 diet in Top 10 Best Heart-Healthy Diets (Tie)
• No.1 diet in Top 10 Best Plant-Based Diets
• No.1 diet in Top 10 Easiest Diets to Follow
• No.7 diet in Top 10 Best Weight-Loss Diets (Tie)

Principles Of The Mediterranean Diet

In Greece, meals include an average of nine servings of fruits and vegetables a day, and if you want to adopt the Mediterranean diet, you should aim for seven to 10 servings daily. The other big change is a switch from butter or margarine, which contains unhealthy saturated or trans-fat, to olive oil, a heart-healthy, mostly monounsaturated fat. The Mediterranean way of consuming (whole grain) bread is to eat it plain or dipped in olive oil. Foods are flavored with a variety of herbs and spices. If you consume alcohol, you can drink moderate amounts of wine. Research has shown that it is the combination of the foods included in the Mediterranean diet that appears to help protect the health, rather than any single one (such as olive oil).

Foods You Can Eat

The daily staples are high-quality fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, legumes, unrefined cereals, olive oil, fermented dairy products such as yoghurt and natural cheeses, and fresh fish. While red meat isn’t eliminated, it is limited to about one meal a month. Similarly, poultry, eggs and sweets are permitted but are eaten only occasionally, not daily.

For Mediterranean Diet Recipes, check out these popular books.

Calorie Count in The Mediterranean Diet

It is a healthy style of eating, not a structured weight-loss plan. For this reason, if you want to lose weight, you have to figure out on your own how many calories you’ll need to eliminate and how many more you can burn through daily exercise. Studies have shown that eating the Mediterranean way can lead to greater weight loss than low-fat diets and can help reduce the accumulation of belly fat. Because it emphasizes plant-based foods, you may be able to eat more than you could on other types of diets and still lose weight.

A five-year study published in 2016 found that adults with type 2 diabetes or heart disease risks who remained on a Mediterranean diet, actually consumed more fat than those who were assigned to a control diet and advised to reduce dietary fat. Those on the Mediterranean diet gained less weight and ended up with lower waist circumference than those in the other group.

Experts’ Views

Given the many well-known health benefits of the Mediterranean diet, your doctor is likely to urge you to adopt it if you ask about the subject or have a medical problem the diet can help address. Most physicians should be familiar with the evidence that it can help prevent cardiovascular diseases, increase lifespan and promote healthy ageing.