The Mediterranean Diet: Healthy Or Complete Myth?

 

The content in this post relies on information from Rip Esseltyn's book, My Beef With Meat.

The Mediterranean diet, packed with platters of fish, tons of cheese salads,  fancy yogurts, lashings of olive oil, all washed down with bottles of red wine is the pinnacle of healthy living and longevity. Think again.

The fact of the matter is, there's no real Mediterranean diet! More than 20 countries border the Mediterranean sea, and they all adopt a completely different diet. Some consume olive oil, fish, feta cheese, drink alcohol, many don't.

Rami Zuraykt (an agriculture professor at the American University in Beirut) suggests, "There is no such thing called the Mediterranean diet; there are Mediterranean diets". most of these diets he continues are rich in fruits and vegetables with lots of fresh produce in them, and there is less meat in them.

Dr Ricardo Gomez-Huelgas (Internal Medicine Department at Hospital Carlos Haya in Malaga) states that, "The prevalence of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol in Spain have all risen at an alarming rate over the past twenty years and this is likely to cause future increases in bad health and death due to cardiovascular disease".

The Mediterranean diet myth is actually based on data post World War II in the 1940s and 1950s where people ate lentils instead of meat because they had no choice. "A lot of it has t do with poverty, not geography says Sami Zubaida, a leading scholar on food and culture.

A study from the 1950s found low rates of heart disease among people living on the island of Crete. These folk did consume fats such as olives, avocadoes and olive oil but their diet was predominately plant-based. Fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, with a small amount of fish. At the time the island was economically depressed recovering from the war. They couldn't afford butter, cheese and meat, but as soon as they could, they got fat. The people of Crete today consume a completely different diet to that of 1950s post-war. Obesity and heart disease has risen steadily since the original study.

We've been lead to believe that the Mediterranean diet is super healthy through clever marketing and advertising pushed down our throats by the food industry. More than half the populations of Italy, Portugal, and Spain are overweight. Greece is now the sixteenth-fattest country in the world, with more than two-thirds of its citizens overweight. Super healthy!

A quick word on our beloved, "heart healthy", Mediterranean diet approved olive oil. It takes about 1,375 squeezed olives to fill a litre bottle of olive oil. It's 100% fat, and almost 120 calories per tablespoon, making it more calorically dense than any other food on the planet. It is 14.5% saturated fat, and contains almost no vitamins and minerals. To get your daily supply of omega-3 fatty acids from the oil used have to drink about a half-pound bottle, around 2,000 calories! 

So, along with the olive oil, ditch the Mediterranean diet myth and go plant-strong!