While I found this post by Paul Greenberg at Hakai Magazine about the excavation of a Bronze Age Cretan site interesting, it did bring up a pet peeve of mine. I really wonder if people who recommend the “Mediterranean diet” really know what people who live there eat? They eat an enormous amount of bread. I once saw a photo of a typical Sicilian family’s weekly diet. The table was piled high with bread. Yes, there was other stuff but the main component of the diet was bread. “Staff of live”, indeed. It’s no wonder that the Romans gave land to their soldiers—they needed it to grow wheat.
I think that what most advocates of the “Mediterranean diet” mean is eat more fish and vegetables. That’s all well and good but I suspect it’s a lot less like the real Mediterranean diet than the advocates realize.
Isn’t it economics?
Grain, potatoes, and spices to make it palatable. Meat of any kind if you can manage it.
Maybe the best fed are those who have developed a symbiosis with cattle.
Lots of dairy and occasional meat.
Or blood.
More fish, more vegs plus the consumption at table of red wine, the custom of the after dinner walk (and having somewhere safe to do it), along with a slower, more sedate life style (running in the heat is not fun) maybe what a Mediterranean diet is.
Thought olive oil is supposed to be part of it. I love bread. Butter is my poison of choice but if we go out and they give us olive oil I use that. Probably better if that was what I used all the time.
Steve
I’m willing to move to Italy for a year and try this out if someone wants to fund a controlled experiment and pay my expenses
I have it on good authority – the Director of Food and Nutrition at a major hospital – that the term is more of a colloquialism. Yes, as you point out, it is based on a bias towards more fish (and less red meat) and more plant based foods, with the primary fat being olive oil. However, the term was also originally derived from the notion of inclusion of seeds and whole grains, just not in a disproportionate amount.
The modern usage de-emphasizes carbohydrates. BTW – as does the “plate” diet recommendation of the government, having replaced the horrific food pyramid.