So what can I eat on the Mediterranean diet.
First lets understand what the diet is based on, which of course is eating the foods that people who live in the Mediterranean basin eat.
It also involves areas of the Sahara desert, and Africa so as you can see there is a diverse range of foods when you ask what can I eat on the Mediterranean Diet.
Who Created The Mediterranean Diet?
The most common form of the Mediterranean diet was created in the mid 1990s by a Harvard health professor named Walter Willett.
The diet requires you to do regular physical activity, along with consuming a lot of plant food as well as fresh fruit as an after meal dessert, olive oil, dairy products, fish and poultry, up to four eggs each week, red meat in small amounts, and of course wine.
The fat in this diet is controlled, only up to 35% of calories, saturated fat at less than 8% of total calories. It’s thought of as a low-fat high dietary fiber diet.
Ancel Keyes who lived in Italy first published this diet in 1945. But it did not become a fad diet until the mid 1990s.
One of the notable features in the Mediterranean diet is its frequent application of olive oil instead of the bad animal fats used typically in many American diets today. Olive oil has for some time now been known for its abilities to lower cholesterol levels in the blood, as well as blood sugar levels and the all important blood pressure.
Research has revealed that olive oil in our diet helps to prevent ulcers and is also an effective treatment for certain types of ulcers, as well as documented for helping to prevent some cancer. Consumption of red wine is also a feature of this diet in that it has elements with antioxidant properties.
This Is A Combination Of Diets
The Mediterranean diet in reality is a collection of diets partially recommended by the American Heart Association. The American Heart Association is a bit dubious about one part of this diet and that is the high percentage of calories from fat.
The heart association raises a valid argument to the fact that there is a growing problem of obesity in countries around the Mediterranean basin, which is a serious health concern to those looking to go on this diet to lose fat however this could also e due to lack of physical activity which is what affects us all.
Current information however shows that the American Heart Association likes the concept that most of the fat in the Mediterranean diet comes from olive oil, mono saturated fat, that has been shown not to raise cholesterol levels.
This is beneficial for a healthy heart, but it is also said that healthier hearts in the Mediterranean basin maybe due more to increased physical activity rather than the foods they have in their diets.
A lot of information on on the Mediterranean diet can be found in various forms on the Internet.