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The Mediterranean's Edible Sunshine

February 1, 2003 Kimberly J. Decker Comments

Posted in Articles, Healthy, Healthy Foods, Nuts, Topics

Research has implicated an immoderate diet in such 20th-century ailments of abundance as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and even certain cancers. In response, experts warned us to shrink our allotment of rich, fatty foods. However, a new food pyramid, one based on a Mediterranean diet, has emerged. An alternative to the USDA’s Food Guide Pyramid, it suggests that we needn’t sacrifice satiety to the gods of good health. Instead, perhaps our surest strategy for fighting modern society’s chronic illnesses may be to abandon fat-free deprivation and resume eating the way we did before those illnesses became so chronic — which, in many respects, is the way they still eat in the Mediterranean. The news has proved music to consumers’ ears, and manufacturers who manage to weave authentic Mediterranean flavor and nutrition into convenient products will find themselves singing the sweet song of success, as well.

Discovering a new pyramid
In 1994, a joint body made up of the Harvard School of Public Health, the United Nations World Health Organization/Food and Agriculture Organization (WHO/FAO) Collaborating Center, and the Boston-based Oldways Preservation & Exchange Trust (a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to promoting the discussion of food, traditional diets, sustainable agriculture and related issues) presented The Traditional Healthy Mediterranean Diet Pyramid. The result of an ongoing conference series that examined the public-health implications of traditional diets, the Mediterranean pyramid took “the dietary traditions of Crete, much of the rest of Greece, and southern Italy circa 1960,” and structured them in light of current nutrition research, according to Oldways’ website (www.oldwayspt.org).

Why mid-20th-century Crete, Greece and southern Italy? For one, research revealed some of the world’s lowest chronic-disease rates and highest adult life expectancies within the region’s population at that time, despite medical services trailing those in the United States, and Northern and Western Europe. Additionally, when researchers compared records of local, mid-century eating habits with contemporary nutritional understanding based on epidemiological and clinical studies, they couldn’t ignore the diet-to-health links.

Building a base
The pyramid emphasizes daily consumption of bread, pasta, grains, potatoes, fruits and vegetables — the hearty, locally available staples that flesh out the traditionally rural Mediterranean pantry. Their fundamental position in Oldways’ schema echoes the USDA’s decision to rest its own pyramid on a similarly starchy base. The Mediterranean guide also resembles the USDA version in giving the go-ahead to daily doses of dairy, specifically the cheese and yogurt common to the region.

But thereafter, resemblances thin. The Mediterranean pyramid proposes consuming poultry, fish and eggs — the diet’s principle sources of animal protein — on a weekly basis, rather than at the USDA’s recommended rate of two to three servings per day. It includes tree nuts and legumes in the fruits-and-vegetables sector, instead of with the animal-based proteins as in the USDA pyramid. The starkest disparity, however, appears in the guides’ pinnacles. The USDA dedicates its top — and smallest — section to fats, oils and sweets, which it advises we “use sparingly.” In contrast, the Mediterranean apex contains red meat, accompanied by a “monthly” consumption suggestion. Sweets appear in the sector directly below, where they rank with poultry, fish and eggs as weekly indulgences.

And whither the lipids in the Mediterranean diet? They’re found on just about everything, from grilled fish and fresh cheese to roasted peppers and eggplants. The people of Crete, Greece and southern Italy don’t skimp on the olive oil, and the Mediterranean pyramid reflects that liberality. Oil gets pride of place in the “daily” sector, sandwiched between fruits, vegetables, beans, legumes and nuts below, and cheese and yogurt above. In other words, go ahead and consume oil a bit less than you would those oranges and chickpeas, but a little bit more than you’re inclined to enjoy feta curds or tzaziki sauce. The pyramid doesn’t translate that into percentages, but Oldways suggests keeping total fat calories to between 25% and 35% — by no means a Spartan decree, particularly to Americans conditioned to treat fat with caution.