5 ms·

This talks about a Mediterranean Diet quite a bit, but what, exactly is such a diet?

by jbb67 9y ago

Someone 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_diet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_diet: The Mediterranean diet is a diet inspired by the eating habits of Greece, Southern Italy, and Spain in the 1940s and 1950s. The principal aspects of this diet include proportionally high consumption of olive oil, legumes, unrefined cereals, fruits, and vegetables, moderate to high consumption of fish, moderate consumption of dairy products (mostly as cheese and yogurt), moderate wine consumption, and low consumption of non-fish meat products.
- tonyedgecombe 9y ago
  Important to note that list doesn't include Pasta and Pizza :)
  - jbb67 9y ago
    I guess this is my problem, I understand the principle of Mediterranean diet, I just don't know _specifically_ what food to make.,
    - jaclaz 9y ago
      >I guess this is my problem, I understand the principle of Mediterranean diet, I just don't know _specifically_ what food to make., What do you mean? Do you need a (say) weekly example? Mind you this would greatly depend on where you live, and which products you can find (and the actual quality/originality of those products). Personally I am an advocate of the Mediterranean Diet (not really as "coded" by the various scientists, but more like traditional eating), but you need to have "real", "good" ingredients not the kind of stuff that you can normally buy at a supermarket - say - in the UK (with no offence intended to the British or to their supermarkets, of course, only an example) if you want to have the "right" experience, at least regarding taste, but I suspect that also the (supposed) health benefits come from fresh, genuine ingredients. And I would add - OT but connected to other recent discussions on HN about Vitamin D and sun - that most probably part of the generic Mediterranean good health might come from eating "right" while living in the "right" climate.
    - michrassena 9y ago
      I feel like the word "Mediterranean diet" is something I've never seen defined to my satisfaction. I know it includes lots of vegetables and olive oil, and not much meat. I have yet to see anything prescriptive. As in, here's a diet plan with recipes and calorie counts, follow this, from any highly respected medical source. Do people fry food in olive oil along the Mediterranean or is it only eaten fresh? In fact, I'm not even certain that I can buy olive oil anywhere locally, but rather everything labeled olive oil may be something else.
  - jaclaz 9y ago
    >Important to note that list doesn't include Pasta and Pizza Which list? Pasta is an essential item of Mediterranean Diet and Pizza or bread are the same thing, the discussion is more about making them with "whole grain" or "white, refined" flour. Today common flours tend to be much more refined than traditional ones, so "real world" Mediterranean Diet (i.e. what actually people eat daily in Mediterranean countries following the tradition) misses some ingredients of the "whole grain" flours, and the use sparingly warning in the "Harvard Food pyramid": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Harvard_food_pyramid.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Harvard_food_pyramid.png is only for those items made of "white" flour.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
    It says "in the 1940's and '50's" though to be fair at the time people in the Med just didn't have much to eat at all (because of the war). As a Greek person, I'm a bit surprised that pulses are rarely mentioned in what is supposed to be "my" diet. We eat lots of beans, chick peas and lentils in Greece- "fasolada", a soup of dried beans, is our national dish.
- jonlucc 9y ago
  As a hopefully interesting aside: rodent studies that work with diabetes usually have mice or rats that are pre-disposed to T2D, but they kick it off by a few weeks on what is known in the literature as the "American Diet". It's higher in fat and carbs, and while the "standard diet" is brown, grainy, and pretty solid, the higher fat diet is slick, crumbly, and either bright pink or the same color as congealed fat.
cies 9y ago
Great question, and no good answer exists. That why it should be avoided in such studies. There is, however, the traditional Okinawa diet. This is much better defined (a much small geographic region), and know to be one of the healthiest in the world. There's this book Blue Zones, that talks about this.

This talks about a Mediterranean Diet quite a bit, but what, exactly is such a diet?

by jbb67 9y ago

This talks about a Mediterranean Diet quite a bit, but what, exactly is such a diet?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_diet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_diet: The Mediterranean diet is a diet inspired by the eating habits of Greece, Southern Italy, and Spain in the 1940s and 1950s. The principal aspects of this diet include proportionally high consumption of olive oil, legumes, unrefined cereals, fruits, and vegetables, moderate to high consumption of fish, moderate consumption of dairy products (mostly as cheese and yogurt), moderate wine consumption, and low consumption of non-fish meat products.

tonyedgecombe 9y ago
Important to note that list doesn't include Pasta and Pizza :)
- jbb67 9y ago
  I guess this is my problem, I understand the principle of Mediterranean diet, I just don't know _specifically_ what food to make.,
  - jaclaz 9y ago
    >I guess this is my problem, I understand the principle of Mediterranean diet, I just don't know _specifically_ what food to make., What do you mean? Do you need a (say) weekly example? Mind you this would greatly depend on where you live, and which products you can find (and the actual quality/originality of those products). Personally I am an advocate of the Mediterranean Diet (not really as "coded" by the various scientists, but more like traditional eating), but you need to have "real", "good" ingredients not the kind of stuff that you can normally buy at a supermarket - say - in the UK (with no offence intended to the British or to their supermarkets, of course, only an example) if you want to have the "right" experience, at least regarding taste, but I suspect that also the (supposed) health benefits come from fresh, genuine ingredients. And I would add - OT but connected to other recent discussions on HN about Vitamin D and sun - that most probably part of the generic Mediterranean good health might come from eating "right" while living in the "right" climate.
  - michrassena 9y ago
    I feel like the word "Mediterranean diet" is something I've never seen defined to my satisfaction. I know it includes lots of vegetables and olive oil, and not much meat. I have yet to see anything prescriptive. As in, here's a diet plan with recipes and calorie counts, follow this, from any highly respected medical source. Do people fry food in olive oil along the Mediterranean or is it only eaten fresh? In fact, I'm not even certain that I can buy olive oil anywhere locally, but rather everything labeled olive oil may be something else.
- jaclaz 9y ago
  >Important to note that list doesn't include Pasta and Pizza Which list? Pasta is an essential item of Mediterranean Diet and Pizza or bread are the same thing, the discussion is more about making them with "whole grain" or "white, refined" flour. Today common flours tend to be much more refined than traditional ones, so "real world" Mediterranean Diet (i.e. what actually people eat daily in Mediterranean countries following the tradition) misses some ingredients of the "whole grain" flours, and the use sparingly warning in the "Harvard Food pyramid": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Harvard_food_pyramid.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Harvard_food_pyramid.png is only for those items made of "white" flour.
- YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
  It says "in the 1940's and '50's" though to be fair at the time people in the Med just didn't have much to eat at all (because of the war). As a Greek person, I'm a bit surprised that pulses are rarely mentioned in what is supposed to be "my" diet. We eat lots of beans, chick peas and lentils in Greece- "fasolada", a soup of dried beans, is our national dish.
jonlucc 9y ago
As a hopefully interesting aside: rodent studies that work with diabetes usually have mice or rats that are pre-disposed to T2D, but they kick it off by a few weeks on what is known in the literature as the "American Diet". It's higher in fat and carbs, and while the "standard diet" is brown, grainy, and pretty solid, the higher fat diet is slick, crumbly, and either bright pink or the same color as congealed fat.

cies 9y ago

Great question, and no good answer exists. That why it should be avoided in such studies. There is, however, the traditional Okinawa diet. This is much better defined (a much small geographic region), and know to be one of the healthiest in the world. There's this book Blue Zones, that talks about this.