More good news about the Mediterranean diet….

Today's Post:  Friday, 11-8-2013

Really good but NOT surprising news showed up in my email this week.

1.  After many kinds of research have reported good news about the Mediterranean diet, recently a study was reported that women who follow it well live significantly longer than women who don’t.

2.  Small wonder since the Mediterranean diet also has tested to prevent heart disease and all kinds of dementia and make type 2 diabetes better!

3.  AND, another recent study found that people who followed the Mediterranean diet well; got enough of the right kind of exercise each week; AND made NO effort at all to eat less, lost weight and inches from their waists.

So what are the better parts of this wonder diet to do well to get all these benefits.

1.  Use almost exclusively extra virgin olive oil in your food.  If you use butter do it sparingly and only use butter from grass fed cattle and only use it in cooking at low temperatures for relatively short cooking times.  For baking, again bake sparingly and use organic coconut oil and use relatively lower cooking temperatures.

Completely and totally eliminate using oils high in omega 6 such as corn oil, soy oil, canola oil, and safflower oil!  And very rarely use butter if the cattle were fed grains because that makes the butter too high in omega 6 oils. Those omega 6 oils boost inflammation which causes things like cancer, heart disease, and dementia.

Completely and totally eliminate using oils that are partially or totally hydrogenated or show ANY trans fat content.

Similarly never eat ANY foods containing high fructose corn syrup or refined grain wheat flour or MSG; and NEVER drink regular or diet soft drinks.  Don’t use artificial sweeteners or have sugar often.

2.  Eat a wide variety of vegetables both lightly cooked and raw.  Usually adding extra virgin olive oil with both helps you get access to the carotenes they contain which are protective.

With cooked vegetables, add cooked tomatoes and extra virgin olive oil sometimes.

To allow your body to acclimate, gradually add one vegetable for a week or so; but don’t start with too many.  Just keep going.

3.  If you aren’t allergic also eat avocados and raw and unsalted tree nuts.

4.  Eat some beans and lentils.

5.  Rarely eat meat or poultry.  And if you do, either trim virtually all the fat and add back some extra virgin olive oil to replace the fat OR eat meat and poultry ONLY from naturally fed animals NOT grain fed ones.

6.  Eat wild caught fish from unpolluted water and eat such fish that is a bit high in mercury only a few times a year.  And, take purified omega 3 and DHA supplements.

(Never eat ANY farmed fish. It’s simply too high in pollutants to be safe to eat ever.)

7.  Eat virtually no grains.  The wheat in previous times and to some degree in Europe now was & is OK to eat in moderation.  We now know most wheat is harmful to eat. So eat pasta very rarely or use spaghetti squash.

8.  Have a glass or two of a California red wine with dinner most but not all days each week.  (Wines from other places drink sparingly since far more of them contain lead that California wines do not.)