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wanderinggoat t1_j1a9x3y wrote

Can you enlighten me? That's one thing that had always confused me, always articles extolling the benefits of the diet but few detailing what foods and proportions they mean

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wigg1es t1_j1bbpuz wrote

The Mediterranean diet in any context you will generally hear about is simply a largely vegetarian diet almost devoid of red meat, with primary protein being oily fish high in omega-3s and poultry. Primary source of fat is olive oil. That's all.

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wanderinggoat t1_j1bivs3 wrote

I guess there are specific vegetables and some kind of carbohydrates as well. Pizza(or something similar) is eaten in the Mediterranean but is that included? my point is that I suspect saying a "Mediterranean died" is very vague when I suspect people mean something more specific but I don't know what it is.

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wigg1es t1_j1bl7nj wrote

Whole grains are the carbohydrates.

But I think it's generally supposed to be vague because it's really just a different food pyramid. You don't need to eat specifically Greek or Sicilian or Moroccan food.

Part of the appeal of the Mediterranean diet is that there are a lot of cultures with similar food principles but very different flavors that you can pull from to still enjoy the food that is also improving your health.

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cattledogcatnip t1_j1buwx0 wrote

Pizza is definitely not Mediterranean

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VintageJane t1_j1doy00 wrote

I mean, pizza very much is Mediterranean. It’s wood fire baked flatbread covered in herbs, acidic fruit and preserved dairy.

Next thing you are going to tell me that pita and tzatziki aren’t Med food.

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cattledogcatnip t1_j1dqimm wrote

It’s not part of the Mediterranean diet.

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VintageJane t1_j1dqt0e wrote

It is if you make the crust out of whole wheat flour.

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cattledogcatnip t1_j1dxo1q wrote

No. Mediterranean diet does not include processed foods, which pizza is.

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VintageJane t1_j1e1bga wrote

How are you defining processed? You can make very authentic pizza with nothing but yeasted/sourdough fermented whole wheat flatbread, sliced tomatoes, ricotta, olive oil and basil. What in there is too processed for you?

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phredbull t1_j1frgag wrote

Apparently, they've only ever had frozen or corporate chain versions.

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VintageJane t1_j1im6zl wrote

Exactly. That’s like saying “Chinese food isn’t good for a plant based diet” because of your local Panda Express selection.

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Potential_Limit_9123 t1_j1afdd2 wrote

That's how you do it. You create a diet that almost no one in the Mediterranean actually eats, then you can just manipulate the diet so that the "Med" diet always meets whatever your goals are.

What it's supposed to be is lower fat, higher fish, lower "red" meat, usually involving copious amounts of olive oil for some reason. Has no basis in reality.

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VoteLobster t1_j1d7wom wrote

No, the Mediterranean diet refers to an approximation of what Ancel Keys and his team observed in the 60s in some parts of the Mediterranean (Crete, Greece, and southern Italy). That’s where the name comes from. It doesn’t refer to what people in the Mediterranean actually eat these days.

It’s also not necessarily a low-fat diet, since it’s quite high in olive oil.

If you look at the dietary guidelines from any developed country, it’s usually a close approximation of the “Mediterranean” diet just with a few different food choices depending on the culture (e.g. different types of grains or different types of oil).

sauce. Literally in the Wikipedia page

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BafangFan t1_j1dd65a wrote

Keys was a terrible scientist that sent us on the wrong trajectory in America, and across the globe. He maligned saturated fat, in part by showing that rabbits fed saturated fat would get heart disease - rabbits! How much meat is in a rabbit's natural diet?

The Greeks he studied were also very Orthodox Catholics, who regularly fasted. They fasted multiple times a month. That is a huge confounding variable that he chose to ignore.

Around the time that Keys argued red meat was killing Americans, other scientists were arguing that it was actually sugar and cigarettes causing heart disease. 70 years later, after a long low saturated fat period, look where we are today.

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wanderinggoat t1_j1arhpb wrote

yeah I imagine there are good amounts and bad amounts of those .

I imagine I cant have olive oil deep fried fish every day and say its the Mediterranean diet

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JohnFByers t1_j1abg98 wrote

I was lamenting to Hellenes who may have suffered their wives getting a pang for “gardumba” which is kinda like the Italians call involtini di fraggaglie di agnello — it’s mutton rolled up with offal and liver etc, using intestine as a wrapper and cooked over coals or in an old style baking oven. With potatoes, they love the potatoes.

So imagine she wants that on a Wednesday night and you have to drive out to the coast to the only tavern stupid enough to be open.

Enough to make a man wonder whether having an heir was a good idea.

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