Mediterranean Diet

lemurcat2 wrote: »

nationalvillage3215 wrote: »

Anyone else on this diet? it was rated the No. 1 healthiest diet and I don't see much discussion on it.

The Med diet isn't really a named diet, but one version of a generally healthy eating pattern that lots of us try to follow. I don't eat in an especially Med way in terms of dishes chosen (I'm as likely to be inspired by some other part of the world) and I probably eat too much meat (although a good bit of it is fish) to be really within the parameters of what people mean by Med diet, but I try to eat in many ways that are similar. (I also am not a huge fan of the name, since the Med is a big place and there are some diverse styles of eating.)

But lots of veg (ideally in season, but not now, nothing is in season where I live), some fruit (I tend to eat a lot more in the summer, when it is in season, since I adore local fruit), basically whole foods based. Variety of other healthy plant foods like oats and other whole grains, tubers, legumes. I largely use olive oil and sometimes avocado oil for cooking and in salad dressings. Stuff like that.

AnnPT77 wrote: »

lemurcat2 wrote: »

French_Peasant wrote: »

lemurcat2 wrote: »

carbos101 wrote: »

Ya'll sound like gourmets compared to me - what's the healthiest, easiest, way to eat other than raw or frozen veggies, nuts, canned lentils, beans (can't stand canned foods but need to get over it), wholegrain cereals, the healthy Irish/Scottish oats (not the easiest to make), and the Trader Joe's frozen oatmeal is all flavored/sugared up I'd love to be able to eat strictly vegetarian but need more straight protein (unfortunately) like from meat. Any suggestions other than tofu and eggs? Chicken seems to be a staple but I try not to eat too much.

Would love to be able to eat the Okinawa diet or the Loma Linda, California (7th Day Adventists) diet. It's tough.

Raw and frozen veg: cooked veg are just as healthy. I eat a variety of cooked and raw.

Beans/lentils -- if you don't like canned, buy dried. I do use both because canned are so much more efficient but an instapot or pre-planning makes dried easier. Some legumes (like lentils!) take much less time. I always do lentils from dry.

You can cook oats (I prefer steel cut, but that's just my texture preference) in a rice cooker or crock pot or do overnight. It's not hard to do even in a pot, though, and there are instant options (John McCann does one), and also instant rolled unflavored (Quaker's plan, among others). Pretty sure you can find plain instant at TJs.

I'm not vegetarian and particularly value fish, but my suggestions for veg protein (beyond tofu and eggs) is cottage cheese, plain greek yogurt, tempeh, seitan, and -- the one I eat most -- beans and lentils and pulses. When doing veg, lower sources of protein are important, like having nuts and seeds, that lots of veg have protein, that whole grains have some protein.

Interestingly, Irish and Scottish oats have a worse nutritional profile than your basic Quaker Rolled Oats. Less fiber and protein per 100 grams. I wonder how that could be; I was under the impression that the less processed oats would be slightly better. I just looked this up because I have ***GEEK ALERT*** gone down the rabbit hole of calculating the fiber/KCal ratio for an assortment of foods. .022 for Scottish vs. .026 for Quaker Rolled. To put this in perspective, apples are .05, black beans are .07, and raspberries are .13.

Depends on the brand, but for me it's just a taste preference, they all seem about the same.

Bob's Red Mill rolled oats (55 g) -- 210 cal, 6 g of fiber, 7 g protein.
Bob's Red Mill steel cut (44 g) -- 170 cal, 4 g fiber, 6 g protein -- I assume this is just that there are more grams in the serving (because fewer steel cuts fit in a particular volume) plus rounding, as the ingredients are the same.

Quaker (40 g) -- 150 cal, 4 g of fiber, 5 g protein.

IMO, none of them are really more processed, including instant, they are all just cut differently.

According the Bob's Red Mill blog I linked above, the rolled ones are steamed so they hold together while being rolled, and the instant are pre-cooked. I'd call that "more processed" . . . which is not particularly a criticism, in my book. I don't see why I should care if they pre-cook them, or I cook them, they're cooked.

(That said, just to inject some crankiness, I think the flavored packets of instant oats are mostly kind of icky, not a great texture/too sweet/odd flavors, though I'll eat them if they're the best option at a motel "continental breakfast". I also don't think they're appreciably more convenient than scooping some rolled oats into a deep bowl, dumping in water, and sticking them in the microwave.)

merekins wrote: »

GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »

Whenever I'm Googling recipes, I zero in on a particular ingredient plus cuisine type and go from there. So something like "Italian chickpea recipes" or "Greek fish recipes" might yield you results.

Am trying that with pomegranate syrup. Have turkish recipe for stuffed peppers that used in as a finishing sauce and trying to find other ways to use the bottle up. Lol

snowflake954 wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

I feel like once again we're getting into territory (pun intended) where we're mixing up words and meanings, at the expense of understanding and communication.

AFAIK, the genesis of the Mediterranean Diet idea was noting certain kinds of relative health in that region (not necessarily uniquely), then looking for the nutritional factors that might be causative, and pulling those out as an eating pattern. It's then a shorthand to call it "the Mediterranean Diet", and that has some mnemonic value, but it's not a 100% definitive geographical thing.

I don't think the implication is that anything anyone ever ate anywhere on a beach or cliff of the Mediterranean Sea is automatically super healthy (deep-fried calamari diet, anyone? ), nor is it that you should never eat Indian food or sub-Saharan African food or Mexican food on the "Mediterranean Diet" because it has some particular nutritious green veggie that isn't grown in the Mediterranean region, or has a different kind of bean, or different spices, or something. I think that misses the point.

I think lemurcat is spot-on here:

lemurcat2 wrote: »

This is actually why I don't like the term "Med diet" for the healthy eating pattern described above. My cooking isn't particularly Mediterranean in style. If I cook in any style on a regular basis, it's something of a farm-to-table American style, pretty simple on a day to day basis, but with various dishes I've adopted/adapted from a variety of cultures (I like reading regionally-based cookbooks and experimenting with different ideas).

But it still fits the Mayo Clinic list in most respects.

Well, with all respects to the Mayo--from my home state of Minnesota--I think they should call their list the "Mayo diet". The Mediterranean Diet is listed as UNESCO Cultural Patrimony of Humanity as of 16 Nov 2010. Yes, it is a thing. It's foods and values are Mediterranean based (hence the name). The name is being bandied around as a fad and, being American, I know they have no idea what it really entails. You can eat pickles and peanut butter and call it vegetables and healthy fat so it must be part of the Med diet--right? Neither come from a Mediterranean country. I see so many silly things on here. Am I a purist--no, but talking about Indian or Asian food (both wonderful) as being part of a Med diet is strange.

snowflake954 wrote: »

As for the above, it's not a question of one being healthier because it was cooked in the Mediterranean. If the Indian woman presented the dish to her family saying "Look what I made today, a Mediterranean specialty!" Her family would think she was nuts. Indians are proud of their dishes and should be. As the Moroccan wife would not present her dish as an Indian specialty. Ingredients can be similar in different parts of the world, but they are cooked differently--especially different fats. The Med dish would have surely used olive oil, would the Indian dish have done the same?