What is the Mediterranean Diet?

The Mediterranean diet’s focus isn’t on your weight, but instead on improving your health, and specifically your heart health. It’s considered one of the healthiest ways of eating, is straightforward to follow, and is pretty flexible. It’s a way people in France, Spain, Greece and Italy eat, when they eat healthy.

The Mediterranean diet is simple and focuses lots on lean protein, vegetables, beans and nuts, healthy fats, and whole grains.

Some foods you’ll eat on a Mediterranean diet include:

• Chicken
• Fish
• Olive oil
• Avocadoes
• Fruits and veggies
• Nuts and seeds
• Brown rice and quinoa
• Beans and legumes
• Eggs

It includes eating breads and pasta, eating plenty of fish, which can be found in large varieties across the Mediterranean, some sea food and plenty of vegetables such as fresh tomatoes, basil, red peppers and such.
It also helps to eat your food slowly and surrounded by family and friends, taking your time to chew and flavour every bite. If you’ve ever been to any of the previously mentioned Mediterranean countries you’ll know what I mean and it’s quite an experience. Even eating a fish dinner with my partner in a beautiful setting by the beach we spent a whole hour trying all kinds of different foods that were laid down on the table, from garlic bread with house special pesto, to potatoes dipped in region’s favourite source to a salad of all kinds of different ingredients and finally the main fish which took ages to eat due to its size and delicious taste. A walk along the beach after helped us digest the lovely meal.

The Mediterranean diet is a lifestyle and it’s one not everyone can afford but everyone certainly can incorporate in some of the daily activities revolving around food.

Health Benefits of the Mediterranean diet:

• the diet is straightforward to follow without lots of restrictions,
• it is a heart healthy diet, if you’re concerned about your cardiovascular health, have heart problems or high pressure, this is the best diet for you,
• it is filled with nutrients as it provides variety of food groups and lots of fresh vegetables and fruit,
• it encourages cutting out processed foods, sugar and dairy, but never completely,
• red meat and sweets are only eaten occasionally on the Mediterranean diet,
• you end up eating a lot of healthy fats which fight inflammation, such as Omega-3 fatty acids in fishes and fresh, extra virgin olive oil instead of margarine.

Overall, the Mediterranean diet is simple to follow and many of the foods you already love are probably included.