What does the Mediterranean Diet consist of?
Defining and understanding the Mediterranean Nutrition and Diet is not easy because there are several countries that border the Mediterranean Basin. Still, the traditional diets from the people living in the 1960’s in countries like Greece, and Southern Italy have been studied extensively over the past several years. This is due to the notably low incidence of chronic diseases and high life-expectancy rates attributed to these populations who ate traditional Mediterranean diet foods. The traditional Mediterranean diet delivers as much as 40% of total daily calories from fat, yet the associated incidence of cardiovascular diseases is significantly decreased. As a monosaturated fatty acid, olive oil does not have the same cholesterol-raising effect of saturated fats. Olive oil is also a good source of antioxidants. Eating fish a few times per week benefits the Mediterranean people by increasing the amount of “Omega-3 fatty acids” – something that the rest of the developed societies don’t
