The mediterranean countries do largely use olive oil as the cooking fat, though they of course also eat other things. But olive oil is the default thing you coo

The mediterranean countries do largely use olive oil as the cooking fat, though they of course also eat other things. But olive oil is the default thing you cook with, in contrast to northern Europe, where lard and butter are traditional. The seven countries that consume more than 5 L/person/yr of olive oil are all conspicuously mediterranean: Greece, Spain, Italy, Morocco, Algeria, Syria, and Tunisia. The linked article's claim that only Crete has this style of diet in Greece is strange, also. It's not even the part of Greece it's most associated with, let alone the only one that follows it (the region most known for its olive-oil cultivation/cuisine is Peloponnesus).