Precisely, What Is a Mediterranean Diet?
by Richard Uzelac
You’d want to eat like the Mediterranean because it’s one of the world’s healthiest diets, with a proven astonishing effect on longevity. Mediterranean people who have consumed this diet have proven to have the lowest amount of almost every disease you can imagine, like heart disease and diabetes.
In the Mediterranean diet, the majority of the food comes from plants, including vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts, seeds, and grains. Just because the food is plant-based doesn’t mean there’s no meat, chicken, or fish. The Mediterranean diet is actually a diet inspired by many regions across the Mediterranean. Folks eat differently from each other. While Spanish cuisine might be rich in tomatoes and garlic, French cooking tends to rely on bolder flavours like black olives or olive oil. And in Sicily and Malta, you’ll find some of the highest fish consumption rates in Europe. It’s all about discovering what makes each region unique and then adapting those recipes to fit your tastes and lifestyle while being healthy.
The Mediterranean diet has several benefits…
For starters, the foods in this diet are known to promote good health. There is an inverse relationship between diet and disease; eating a nutritious diet helps you prevent diseases like heart disease, stroke, cancer, and diabetes. Because the Mediterranean diet is high in fiber and low in saturated fats, it’s also thought to help lower cholesterol and blood pressure levels and improve digestive health. Mediterranean diet is also used as an anti-inflammatory diet.
The Mediterranean Diet: How Does It Work?
Mediterranean Diet involves lots of vegetables, fruit, beans, lentils and nuts, and extra virgin olive oil. Since it’s a plant-based diet and you might wonder why you need extra olive oil in your diet. As you might have known, extra olive oil comes from – guess what? It comes from olive!
Extra Virgin Olive Oil, or EVOO, is made from olives that have been selected, harvested, and pressed under high-quality standards. It’s made naturally without chemicals.. When the olives are pressed, they are killed by heat and mechanical damage. There are no chemicals involved in creating this oil; it’s made naturally.
Olive oil is a tasty ingredient that can be used in many recipes. The quality of the olive oil will determine the taste of your recipe. The consumption of extra virgin olive oil has been on the rise lately. This is due to more people becoming health conscious and realizing it is better for you than other oils such as vegetable or corn oil. Now there are lots of these in the market do you realize that there are such light and pure olive oil?
Pure Olive Oil – It’s a blend of extra virgin olive oil and processed oils. Check the label before you buy it to find out what’s in it.
Ligh Oil- Light oils are often processed and refined, so they lose their color and flavor, hence referred to as “light”.
Nonetheless, Olive Oils are healthful fats because it is consist of oleic acids, which are monosaturated fatty acids (MUFAs), which health experts agree are healthful fat.
Richard Uzelac's Favorite List of Mediterranean Diet Foods
Ironically, what used to be a peasant diet is now expensive. These whole organic things being marketed currently in the market are expensive, but you can find ways. For example, you could exchange this “grass-fed meat” in the market for beans and only use meat very seldom and be holistic to the plant-based diet.
Oats
Walnuts or any kind of nuts
Strawberries
Legumes or Black Beans and Pinto Beans
Grapes
Yogurt
Fish, mostly Salmon
Your preferred Red Wine or organic Red Grape Juice
The Mediterranean Diet Facts
- Fruits (people eat fruits for dessert after meals) Usually 9 or 13 fruits a day cooked in olive oil.
- Foods that are processed, especially those high in sugar, like doughnuts and sodas, aren’t on the list.
- It’s a plant-based diet – that means most of the food comes from plants – but that doesn’t mean the meat is off limits (meat is treated like a condiment)
- There is a lot of olive oil that comes with the leafy vegetables.
- The most common source of protein you take up is beans since they are plant-based foods.
- There’s some whole-fat dairy they eat in their diet.
- They eat a lot of omega three foods like Salmon, walnuts, cod liver, and many more.
- They eat a lot of whole grain, which is something like oats. Millet or whole wheat
- It is a super high-fat diet, yet most people on this diet are thin.
- Red grape juice is as good as red wine.
The Mediterranean Diet Myths
1. MEDITERRANEAN PEOPLE DON’T EAT POTATOES OR BREAD
So many people think that there’s no potato and bread, a lot of misconception, but Italians or Greeks eat it all the time.
2. IT’S A LOW-FAT DIET
In fact, it is a very high-fat diet since the Mediterranean uses a lot of olive oil, and it is a principal source of fat
3. YOU CAN ONLY HAVE A MEDITERRANEAN DIET WHEN YOU ARE IN GREECE
You can have a Mediterranean diet wherever you are.
4. MEDITERRANEAN DIET IS NOT COMPLETE WITHOUT A WINE
Many Mediterranean people are actually Muslims, and they don’t drink beer, and most of them don’t drink alcoholic beverages (You can eat red grape juice instead )
