http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/stor...?hub=TopStories

They call this a new survey but do you get the feeling you've heard this somewhere before?



It's also a very delicious diet! It's pretty much what I eat except I do like dairy products, although mostly low-fat dairy products these days.

How many eat a Mediterranean diet? Raise your hand!

FiveO....

We need to move to somewhere in the Mediterranean to get the full effect. When do you want to go?


~~Dawn

Heard it before. Many times.

I believe that "real" food, with less but high quality protein, and lots of "vegetable matter," is a good way to go.

Mediterranean fits the bill alright.

Magdalene, right on! It's quite simple (but not that easy to obtain sometimes with all the tinkering of food).


I got us a couple of tickets...

First heard the buzz nearly two decades ago. Dove-tailed nicely with the undergrads-on-falafel-and-hummus meme.

Based on my travels in the Mediterranean, I feel this report of the mediterranean diet as being vegetable heavy is a bit of dietary propaganda. Meat and seafood are usually the main event in Italy, Spain, France, Greece and the Balkan areas. When I was in Barcelona's boqueria market, all the respectable butchers took pride in displaying the flayed veal, lamb and pig heads among their wares.

Not new, but they do eat a lot more omega-3-rich fish than Westerners do, as a rule. And there's all that walking, too --- I'm thinking of the hilly areas of Greece and Italy.

A friend of mine's mother, who is a doctor and renowned nutritional expert, has written a great book that explains it all and also contains some really good recipes. She also has menus for weight loss as well as menus for when you don't want to lose weight, but do want to eat right. When my husband and I stick to this diet, we lose/don't gain weight.

It's called The Omega Plan, by Artemis P. Simopoulous. I think she's put out a new edition recently, but I've got the older one and it's just great.

Give up transfats, sugar (except for special occasions a few times per year) and processed grains and you will be fine. Unfortunately for me, everyday is a special occasion when it comes to sugar! I never eat the other crap, which I don't consider real food.