A Gift of Health the Mediterranean Diet

The Healthy Mediterranean Diet

There many methods available today for anyone wishing to achieve optimum wellness. Infomercials on the television advertise various diet plans ranging from organic herbs to pills to liquid diets, stressing the advantages of these methods over conventional weight loss methods. Many people often experience difficulty finding a method that actually works however.

The healthy Mediterranean Diet, however, is based on age-old wisdom. Recent research has verified that this diet is proof of the saying that one man’s daily diet may be another man’s path to optimum wellness.

Greece has some of the lowest rates of certain types of heart disease worldwide. Current scientific research points towards a diet high in fruits, vegetables, fish, whole grains, legumes, low fat dairy products, nuts, and olive oil being highly beneficial for a person’s health, providing long-term protection against certain diseases.

The Mediterranean Diet stresses optimal health over weight loss, and current scientific research now shows that what the native Greeks have understood for many centuries and have demonstrated in their diet is effective at reducing the risk of contracting heart disease and certain cancers and at increasing life expectancy. The Greeks have also long understood the benefits of consuming olive oil.

“Mediterranean Diet” is, in fact, a generic term as the diet of the Greeks is rather varied, and Greek dishes show evidence of North African and Italian influence. The island of Crete has provided researchers with a wealth of health related information, as its residents have one of the lowest rates of heart disease on the planet.

Interestingly enough, as people from Western nations eagerly seek out the health benefits to be gained from diets in countries like Greece, many Greek youths are at the same time eagerly pursuing Western cuisine. This trend is proving to be somewhat antithetical to the wellness that the diets of the older Greeks bring them.

While older Greeks adhere to traditional diets of stuffed tomatoes, melons, salads, and yogurt, the younger generations of Greeks now regularly consume cookies, French fries, hamburgers, pizza, and soda pop. The resulting increase in obesity rates among younger Greeks has researchers predicting a rise in the rates of heart disease in the coming years.

The Mediterranean Diet replaces butter with healthy olive oil; fast food lunches with various fresh vegetables; chocolate and cola with fresh nuts and fruits.

Some people may wonder why they have not heard more about the Mediterranean Diet. This is because with the Mediterranean Diet, there is no special compound to drink, no special pill to buy, and no 12-step meal plan to follow – it is simply a healthy diet that anyone can follow with ease.

The Mediterranean diet works simply because it is based on common sense in eating choices. A rise in High Density Lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol levels is beneficial to the body and indicates that you are on the right track. The health benefits offered by olive oil are truly great, and traditional Greek cooking uses large amounts of fresh garden produce along with extra virgin olive oil. The popularity of these foods has played a large part in the decreasing rates of heart disease, colon cancer, and obesity and the rising life expectancies.

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