For some years now, the Mediterranean diet has lost Italy as a reference point, in a certain sense “criticized” because traditional cuisine is giving way to a more Western and modern way of eating , light years away from that simple and peasant diet that Ancel Keys observed and studied in Cilento and from which the foundations for the classification of a standard Mediterranean diet and a food pyramid at its base would be laid. In fact, more than criticizing Italy and its Mediterranean diet, many have pointed the finger in recent years against Keys’ deductions : it is true that in the 1960s they did not eat a lot of meat, butter and cheese. did you eat legumes, fish, whole grains and olive oil?

Did Keys’ observations concern poorer neighborhoods? And what about traditional Italian recipes based on lard or butter, goat cheese, pork, dairy products or sausages? According to Keys, we should think that these things are just modern, instead they belong to the traditional culinary heritage of the various regions. In Campania the use of lard is abundant, and pork or offal is eaten throughout the South; goat milk and cheeses are typical of Sardinians, and some inhabitants of Sardinia are considered among the longest-lived. This without considering northern and central Italy, especially Roman cuisine, whose origins are not exactly from the day before yesterday.
Yet, abroad, purists of the Mediterranean diet are now looking further eastto look for a valid example of Ancel Keys’ observations: Greece.
The Greek Mediterranean diet is considered the least contaminated diet and still linked to the traditions that Keys found fifty years ago at the table.
Here are the cornerstones of the Mediterranean diet in the Cretan version according to an American journalist

1) Often raw olive oil as the main source of fat and extensive use of olives.
2) Fresh aromatic herbs used without parsimony, handfuls in dishes
3) Green leafy vegetables , but more in the wild and field version (field herbs, nettles, wild rocket)
4) Goat’s milk and goat cheeses : milk goat is more digestible than cow’s milk and richer in calcium
5) Sugar with honey: honey is abundant throughout Greece.
6) Use Greek yogurt or goat yogurt to help your gut
7) Drink quality wine, and only that (as an alcoholic drink)