What is it and what makes it so good for you? Our experts explain why this way of eating is so often talked-about
words VICTORIA TAYLOR & KERRY TORRENS
Your diet decoder
There is always a lot of talk about whether fat or sugar is the worst offender when it comes to our eating habits, but by focusing on individual dietary components, it’s easy to miss the bigger picture. While it’s important to understand how different foods and nutrients affect our health, a whole diet approach offers a much more helpful way of assessing the choices we make about what we eat.
With this in mind, few whole diet approaches have won as much acclaim as the Mediterranean diet (or ‘MedDiet’). Victoria Taylor, senior dietitian at the British Heart Foundation, and registered nutritionist Kerry Torrens review the evidence.
What exactly is a Mediterranean diet?
The MedDiet encourages an eating pattern that includes staples from the countries around the Mediterranean, such as Spain, Greece, Italy and France. The diet is primarily plant-based with contributions from animal-based products being largely fish and poultry with a limited quantity of dairy products. The diet also includes plenty of seasonal fruit and vegetables, beans, legumes, wholegrains and low-to-moderate alcohol consumption, typically red wine.
It’s thought to be the combination of all these elements that seem to bring health benefits, but one of the key aspects is the inclusion of healthy fats. Olive oil, which is a predominantly monounsaturated fat, is most commonly associated with the MedDiet, but polyunsaturated fats are also present in the form of unsalted nuts, seeds and oily fish. While the modern version of the diet utilises a higher proportion of red meat and introduces some processed foods, the diet’s primary focus remains the same – plant-based with extra healthy fats.
How does the Mediterranean diet work?
As research into the benefits of this type of diet is ongoing, there may eventually be certain foods that are found to have greater significance for health. For now, however, it seems it is the overall diet approach and the combination of foods, rather than individual foods that make this such a healthy way to eat. This makes sense, as it’s true that if you are eating an unhealthy diet full of processed foods, adding one element such as olive oil is unlikely to have noticeable health benefits if that’s the only change you make.
However, if you adjust your whole diet so you eat a little less meat a
