The Mediterranean Diet

As we are in southern Spain it seems right to be eating the Mediterranean diet. Last night it was salmon fillet with home-made pesto sauce (basil, pine nuts, and olive oil) and stir-fried Mediterranean vegetables. Now this is where you have to pay attention as my newsletter has to be bilingual! Our Mediterranean veg medley consisted of aubergines (eggplants) and courgettes (zucchini) and sweet pepper.

I wonder why in the UK we use the French word "courgette" while in the US the same vegetable is the Italian "zucchini". It's as if neither English-speaking nation quite got around to naming the vegetable!

Anyway, our meal of salmon, pesto and veg was bursting with the nutrients that you will find in a healthy diet.

Omega 3 fats in the salmon, monosaturated fats in the olive oil, and polyunsaturates in the pine nuts. Plus all the fat-soluble vitamins that go with this (that's A, D, E, and K).

At this meal we have no starchy carbs (potato, rice, or bread) because excess starch is fat-producing. And we get all the carbs we need from the veg medley.

And the veg are bursting with plant chemicals that will make your arteries sing!

Now note that this meal is not low fat. But it's so tasty and nutritious that your body does not need tons of this food. And this diet is good at lowering cholesterol in spite of (or perhaps because of) its fat content.

The Standard American Diet (or SAD!) contains 42% fat, mostly saturated fat. American doctors are keen to get patients on to a low fat diet (around 20% fat) to lower cholesterol. But the Mediterranean diet lowers cholesterol almost as well as the low fat diet - and tastes a lot better and is bursting with nutrients. 

And the Mediterranean diet contains… wait for it… 38% fat. This news makes the American cardiologists' arteries burst because they have difficulty acknowledging that such a high fat diet works!

It is, of course, the right kind of fat. And this diet is low in sugar and rich in whole grains, so there is more than just the fat contributing to lowered cholesterol.

The "low fat = health" lobby is so strong (and think how many diet plans are built around it) that it is only through clenched teeth that some doctors will acknowledge that the Mediterranean diet is healthy.

But this diet satisfies our taste buds and the satiety centres of the brain. We enjoy the food and feel full. 

So you may not be on the Mediterranean but you can eat nature's bounty this summer while adding to your health and reducing your waistline.

Here's to a healthy summer!

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