Mediterranean Diet Food Pyramid

Mediterranean Diet Food Pyramid

How to Lose Weight With The Greek Mediterranean Diet

1. Subdivide your daily food intake into 4-5 sitting. This division helps you digest foods more efficiently and better utilize the main nutrients present in your food.

2. Eat proper amounts of pasta. This is a product capable of acting as the main ingredient of meals.

3. Accompany foods with bread. Try to choose multi-grain bread or traditional Italian bread or rolls and avoid as much as you can speciality breads, that are often prepared with the addition of oil or butter.

4. Include “all-in-one-meals” like pasta with vegetables or legumes in your daily routines. They are typical of Italian cuisine and provide you with the same nutrients as a three-course meal while being also lower in calories.

5. Use olive oil as your preferred fat. It's an extremely digestible fat capable of assisting in the digestion of other fats. Recent studies also suggest that olive oil is the key to the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet, due to its content of phenols, a family of weak acidic that repress genes which cause inflammation, so decreasing the risk of heart disease and arthritis.

6. Eat alternative meats such as chicken, rabbit, pork, turkey. They carry similar nutritional values to red meats, but are less fatty by nature.

7. Eat plenty of fish, with special attention to blue fish like sardines and anchovies. They have elevated nutritional value and low fat composition.

8. Limit the use of salt, replacing it with traditional Mediterranean herbs and spices to increase the flavor of foods.

9. Eat plenty of vegetables and fruits, which guarantee the proper consumption of fiber, minerals and vitamins (especially carotene, vitamin C, Vitamin B6 and folate).

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Chitika

SpiderMetrix

Sunday 4 November 2012

Mediterranean diet has long term positive effects

Even if people have regained some weight several years after going on a healthful Mediterranean or low-carbohydrate diet, they can enjoy lasting beneficial effects, according to a follow-up study at Dimona’s Nuclear Research Center and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba.

The study, published last week as a peer-reviewed letter in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, updates the landmark diet study carried out on 322 moderately obese personnel in the workplace over a period of two years, and followed up four years after the end of the intervention. The original study was called DIRECT, for Dietary Intervention Randomized Controlled Trial.

Dr. Dan Schwarzfuchs of the Dimona center, where employees were put on diets and the results observed, said: “Our follow- up subsequent data shows lasting, positive effects of Mediterranean and low-carbohydrate diets six years later.”

BGU researchers Dr. Iris Shai and Rachel Golan added: “Data from trials comparing the effectiveness of weight-loss diets are frequently limited to the intervention period. The results after four years suggests that the lipid profile (lower cholesterol, triglycerides and arteriosclerosis) improved over the long term, regardless of partial regain.”

The Mediterranean diet of low meat intake and high consumption of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, pulses and olive oil, as well as the low-carb diet, had a beneficial effect even though the participants regained some weight. But people on a low-fat diet did not have the same consistent and beneficial results.

Four years after the trial was concluded, participants had regained an average of almost 2.7 kg. Since the beginning of the trial, participants who followed the Mediterranean diet lost an average of 3.1 kg., while those on the low-carb diet lost 1.7 kg. Thus the Mediterranean diet was significantly more effective.

After four years post-intervention, more than two-thirds (67 percent) of the DIRECT participants had continued with their original assigned diet, 11% switched to another diet and 22% were not dieting at all.

The researchers also found that after six years, the highdensity lipoprotein (HDL or “good cholesterol”)/low-density lipoprotein (LDL or “bad cholesterol”) ratio remained significantly lower only in the low-carbohydrate diet. Triglyceride (another potential harmful blood fat) levels remained significantly lower in the Mediterranean and low-carbohydrate diets.

The researchers are now performing a new long-term dietary intervention trial that targets weight-loss mechanisms relating to other different dietary strategies, including novel techniques.



Monday 3 September 2012

Mediterranean diet helps protect bones‎,says recent study



By DR. SWATI SHROFF, ABC News Medical Unit

Could olive oil be the new milk? A new study suggests that this might be the case — though not all health experts are convinced yet.

The study, which looked at 127 elderly Spanish men, found that those who ate a Mediterranean diet enriched with olive oil had higher levels of a protein called osteocalcin that plays a role in bone formation. The research was published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

This could be an important finding since osteoporosis is the most common bone disease in the United States, affecting more than 10 million people. Osteoporosis mainly affects elderly women, but men can develop the disease too. In 2005, there were an estimated 2 million osteoporosis-related fractures, 29 percent them in men.

Earlier studies have found that there are lower rates of osteoporosis in the Mediterranean basin, compared to the rest of Europe, and that may have something to do with the Mediterranean diet. This diet consists of minimally processed fruits, vegetables, breads, beans, nuts and seeds. Olive oil is supposed to be the main source of fat, and there is usually limited dairy, egg, and red meat.

Past studies have suggested that the Mediterranean diet has the potential to lower cardiovascular risk, increase weight loss, lower cancer risk, improve diabetes, and reduce pain and swollen joints in rheumatoid arthritis. What if improved bone health could be added to this growing list?

“We have more evidence that what is good for health in one way, tends to be good for health overall,” says Dr. David Katz, director of Yale University Prevention Research Center. “The very same Mediterranean diet known to be good for cardiovascular health may also confer benefits on your bones.”

However, Dr. Beth Kitchin, a patient educator at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Osteoporosis Clinic, cautions that osteocalcin is simply a marker of bone health — in other words, the new study doesn’t actually look at whether the Mediterranean diet increased bone density or lowered fracture risk.

“This is very interesting data but much, much more work needs to be done before you can say if this has a true clinical impact on bone health,” says Kitchin.

On this point, Katz agrees. “This is not a study of bone density, or clinical effects; it is a short-term study of biomarkers. Interesting, but [it is] more useful for hypothesis generation than anything else.”

Nutritionists were also quick to point out that this study shouldn’t undermine the importance of calcium and vitamin D in bone health.

“It doesn’t replace calcium and vitamin D in the diet, however,” says Keith-Thomas Ayoob, a dietician and professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. “But including all three, and regular exercise, are showing promise as the best way to ensure good bone health.

“I was brought up on a high-olive oil [Mediterranean] diet. It’s how we ate. But not much milk or calcium-containing foods, and my elders paid a price for it.”


Sunday 29 July 2012

Mediterranean diet can help women get pregnant, research suggests

Women wanting to get pregnant should eat a Mediterranean-style diet rich in avocados and olive oil but light in dairy and meat, an IVF conference has heard.

New research indicates a diet containing lots of monounsaturated fat - found in the fleshy green fruit, olive oil, as well as peanuts, almonds and cashews - can as much as triple the chance of success in women resorting to fertility treatment to conceive.

Specialists believe such a diet could help the majority of women wanting to get pregnant naturally as well.

By contrast eating lots of saturated fat, found in dairy products and red meat, appears to damage women's fertility, the Daily Telegraph reported. High saturated fat intake has already been linked to lower sperm counts.

Dr Jorge Chavarro and colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health in the United States, looked at how intake of different types of fats affected success of IVF treatment in 147 women, mostly in their 30s.

They found the women who ate the most monounsaturated fat had up to three times the chance of giving birth via IVF as those who ate the least.

Specifically the top third, who derived on average 25 per cent of their calories from monounsaturated fat, has three times the chance of success compared to the bottom third, who derived on average nine per cent of their calories from it.

However, those who ate the most saturated fat produced two fewer eggs suitable for test-tube fertilisation than those who ate the least - nine compared to 11.

Dr Chavarro said: "As far as the best fat profile is concerned, this is the fat profile that you would find in a Mediterranean diet."

However, he cautioned that the study was very small and the findings needed to be replicated in larger numbers before firm advice could be issued.

Nonetheless, he continued: "Even though we don't know for sure if it will be of benefit, we do know it won't be harmful."

This was because numerous studies had shown Mediterranean-style diets to have a protective effect on health, particularly regarding heart disease.

The Harvard study also looked at the role of polyunsaturated fats, commonly thought to be healthy.

They found that - perhaps unexpectedly - women with higher intakes of polyunsaturated fats tended to have lower quality eggs.

But Dr Jorge, a nutritionist and epidemiologist, explained there were different types of polyunsaturated fats - some that could hinder fertility and others that could help.

He said the women in the study tended to eat lots of omega-six polyunsaturates, found in corn and canola oils.

He believed omega-three polyunsaturates, found in oily fish like salmon, were not harmful to fertility.

Women hoping to conceive should not stop eating them, he said.

The study, presented this week at the annual meeting of the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology in Istanbul, was not big enough to tease out the differences between the two types, he added.

Exactly why different types of fat have different effects on fertility is currently unclear, although Dr Chavarro said they were "known to have different effects on biological processes which may influence the outcome of assisted reproduction".

Richard Kennedy, general secretary of the International Federation of Fertility Societies (IFFS), commented: "We know that many lifestyle activities can make it harder to conceive.

"This work reinforces the need for a good lifestyle for those trying to have a baby; eat and drink in moderation, and don't smoke." AGENCIES. 




Wednesday 2 May 2012

Why the Mediterranean diet is good for your health and the environment



People who wish to eat healthy should consider the Mediterranean diet, according to a report released on Earth Day.

The report “Eating Planet,” released by the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition (BCFN) and published in collaboration with Worldwatch Institute, particularly recommended the Mediterranean way to populations in developing countries.

The report said the Mediterranean diet not only had high nutritional value, but also contributed to protecting the environment. It pointed out that food items recommended by nutritionists to be eaten more often—fruits, vegetables, bread, rice, pasta and legumes—had a lower impact on the environment. These items are the mainstay of the Mediterranean diet.

The report noted that, in developing countries, rising average incomes were affecting dietary choices. In view of this, it stressed that “it is important to provide access to and education about healthy foods like fruits and vegetables before bad eating habits develop into deep-rooted cultural practices.”

Proper nutrition, the report said, should be assured for infants and children to “greatly improve overall health later in life.” A balanced diet, coupled with an active lifestyle, could minimize the risks of overweight, obesity, tumors, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and metabolic syndrome, the report said.

The report also said governments should address the lack of transparency and responsibility in the commercial exchange of food around the world to improve universal access to food. “This means, for instance, ensuring that production of crops to be used as biofuels does not interfere with the cultivation of crops for food,” it said.

The report emphasized, “The food system must encourage ‘sustainable well-being,’ or the idea that people’s current well-being should not be achieved at the expense of the happiness or prosperity of future generations.”

Realistic food prices

To ensure sufficient food supplies, “Eating Planet” said agriculture should remain a viable and sustainable source of livelihood. Farmers should be able to ask realistic prices for their products.

It said, “In many countries, food prices are kept artificially low because they do not take into account the environmental impacts of producing food, the high medical costs associated with long-term unhealthy eating habits, the costs required to pay farmers and farm workers a decent living wage plus benefits, and the billions of dollars in government subsidies that farmers receive to grow certain commodities.

“If farmers could charge real prices for the food they grow, consumers, especially in wealthy countries, would reconsider the impacts of their various food choices.”

The report said some 30 percent of food was wasted worldwide, while one billion people went to bed hungry each night and another one billion suffered from health problems related to obesity. Agriculture contributed one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions that were causing global warming or the rise in average temperatures.

“Eating Planet” is a collaboration between BCFN and Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet project, an evaluation of environmentally sustainable solutions to alleviate hunger and poverty. It will be available for purchase on Amazon and iTunes starting tomorrow, April 26. For more details and updates, visit www.barillacfn.com/en.



Saturday 3 March 2012

The Mediterranean Diet boosts the Brain



We’ve long talked about the Mediterranean diet as heart-healthy. But a new study shows that it’s “brain-healthy” too.
According to the research, the diet may help protect against brain blood-vessel damage, which in turn cuts the risk of stroke and memory loss.
The diet has long been shown to lower the risk of heart ailments such as stroke and heart disease, as well as cognitive disorders like Alzheimer’s disease. It consists largely of vegetables, fruit, fish, whole grains, nuts, olive oil and moderate consumption of alcohol, with limited intake of red meat, sweets and refined grains such as white bread.



The study, which was published in the Archives of Neurology, was the first to look at how the diet affects the brain.
The researchers, from the University of Miami and Columbia University, looked at food surveys filled out by nearly 1,000 subjects in a larger, ongoing Northern Manhattan Study and categorized the groups based on how much their diets resembled a typical Mediterranean-style one.
They then used magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scans of the subjects’ brains to look for damage to small blood vessels that causes so-called silent strokes, which do not cause immediate symptoms but build up over time to hurt cognitive performance.



The results generally showed that the people who scored highest for adherence to the Mediterranean diet had the lowest amount of blood vessel damage. Also, the people who ate more of the kind of fat found in olive oil showed less of the damage to their small blood vessels.
The study does not demonstrate that a Mediterranean-style diet causes less brain damage, so more study is needed. But it may help protect small blood vessels in the brain.