Are we sure we really know what the real Mediterranean diet is? Today we are invaded by cooking programs in which fries, sauces, mousses and so on are recommended without being hurt.

Never one who says, rather than dictating the recipe: “Ok, this is Sunday dessert”, or, “This time we cook lightly”. What is left of the true Mediterranean diet?

What does Italian cuisine consist of today?
This is what I wonder when a salty cream puff with minced cured meats and cheeses is presented very lightly on TV.

Even when the ingredients are those typical of Mediterranean cuisine, such as tomato, oil, blue fish or legumes, you can’t save yourself. There is always something fried in between, the seasoning is always elaborate and in the end the dish is substantial.

At a certain point it is also logical to think that the model of the Mediterranean diet, seen as meatballs with sauce, parmigiana, amatriciana, spaghetti that overflows from the dishes, lasagna and so on, went to be blessed and abroad is seen as a contradiction .
How does something so high in calories be healthy? Tell him that Italians don’t eat lasagna every day. So what do they eat?
What do we eat?

What is the true Mediterranean diet according to science

Many know that the Mediterranean diet is one of the healthiest in the world according to the scientific community. But have you ever wondered what is the food model most often considered by scientists?
The Cretan one.

The reason is simple. Crete is a Greek island where, apart from perhaps the most touristic places, the food has remained roughly that of the grandparents. We eat goat and veal, there are practically no sausages. You continue to fry in cases using olive oil, the same thing for seasoning the dishes.
Various types of fresh cheeses and bread are eaten, but basically the main dish includes fish or meat and potatoes plus vegetables. Stuffed vegetables, vegetables in timbale. Compared to Italian cuisine, Cretan cuisine has continued to be roughly the same as it once was.
Few desserts, fruit or yogurt with honey is the dessert.

And in fact, when the researchers apply the Mediterranean diet model as formalized by its creator, the American doctor Ancel Keys, what they do is make the participants of the various studies follow a menu based on whole grains, often grains (barley, oats), dairy products and fresh cheeses, olive oil, small fish, lean meats, vegetables, fruit, seeds, oil, olives, legumes, few eggs, red wine.

When in fact Keys in Cilento appreciated the Italian diet, he was referring to that of our great-grandparents.
Children of the post-war period and of poverty, who lived a daily life in which, inevitably, food availability, choice and portions were what they were.

The border between the Mediterranean diet and Italian cuisine

Our current diet is far from being considered “Mediterranean”. Keys would never recognize her. Too many industrial products, Sunday dishes passed off as newspapers. But amatriciana? Isn’t it a traditional dish? Yes sir, but it reflects a territorial peculiarity whereby those who had the pig used it all, even for cooking. A hearty dish that originally consisted of slices of leftover bread.

From this to making it an everyday dish, well, no.

It’s not like once upon a time people could afford pecorino of a certain type and bacon of another. They just couldn’t afford to eat meat every day every day!
Many dishes that for us today are elaborate but traditional, are nothing more than dishes arranged with what we had at home.
Today, however, we have the fridge full.
We do not need to put together cheese bottoms with pieces of bacon from the leftovers.

The point is all here.

How to do the real Mediterranean diet

Breakfast based on coffee or tea, durum wheat bread with jam, or milk biscuits and a cup of milk.
Snacks based on a seasonal fruit.
Lunch with a plate of cereals such as spelled, barley, oats, rice, or polenta, to be preferred to pasta and vegetables cooked in a little olive oil.
A mixed dish is also fine: pasta with legumes or cereals and legumes, for example.
Dinner based on vegetable soup, fish or white meats or low-fat dairy products or an egg in rotation + vegetables, a little bread and half a glass of wine. The quantities of foods such as meat and fish are often limited.
The Mediterranean diet includes 60% carbohydrates, preferably whole, from legumes and fruit.

Sweet after a meal? No. The dessert is traditionally eaten only on Sundays.
You can eat a fruit, a nut, a couple of almonds.
There are no snacks, sweet and savory snacks.

On Sundays the meal for lunch is usually substantial, besides the first there is a second course, and finally the dessert, but for dinner it could be limited to a vegetable soup.

If you limit the consumption of oil to one tablespoon per meal and choose healthy cooking, and above all moderate the quantities, it is not difficult to understand how to eat in a healthy and Mediterranean way.

See also : Mediterranean diet for weight loss, the menu.