Best diet for health: Mediterranean

Among the selection of today’s most popular diets, the Mediterranean diet has proven to be the most beneficial to our health, gaining praise from nutrition experts and home gourmets alike.

But while few would dispute the health benefits of such a diet, what is it about the Mediterranean menu that makes it so healthy?

A study released in the online edition of the British Medical Journal has answered this very question. Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and the University of Athens Medical School in Greece looked at more than 23,000 Greek men and women participating in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC). Over the course of about eight and a half years, the researchers compared the health of the participants against their devotion to a Mediterranean diet.

What they found was that certain foods in the diet, more than others, may offer the bulk of the nutritional benefits.

The authors note, the analysis “indicates that the dominant components of the Mediterranean diet score as a predictor of lower mortality are moderate consumption of alcohol, low consumption of meat and meat products, and high consumption of vegetables, fruits and nuts, olive oil, and legumes.”

In contrast, they noted, high consumption of fish and cereals and an avoidance of dairy products in the Mediterranean diet seemed to have little to do with the benefits of the overall diet.

The authors were quick to point out that their findings could not be assumed to be universally applicable. And some diet and nutrition experts noted that examining the Mediterranean diet component by component may not be the best approach.

“In some ways, looking for the ‘active ingredients’ in the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet may be a distraction, since it is the overall dietary pattern that matters most to health,” said Dr. David Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn. “Once you have a mostly plant based diet and eat few processed foods, almost any variation on the theme will be fine.”

And some said the research ignored a main strength of the diet, what it omits; “One of the strengths of the Mediterranean diet is what it does not contain: high amounts of sugar and preservatives,” said New York-based weight and nutrition expert Dr. Jana Klauer. “The standard American diet stimulates the craving for sweet taste through overly sweetened foods.”

Will this study make you consider taking up the Mediterranean lifestyle? Take a closer look at what nutrition experts had to say about the various components of the Mediterranean diet, and how each element can make an impact on your health.

If you want to try the Mediterranean diet, take a look at our latest recipe, it is simple, honest good for you food!