Do you really aspire to the Mediterranean Diet? Really? I mean really?
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Contrary to the propaganda, the healthy peoples of the Mediterranean prized fatty pork, lamb, and goat, ate large quantities of unpasteurized full-fat cheese and milk, made heavy use of salted fish and brined vegetables, salty and fatty sausages, used butter and pork lard copiously in their traditional recipes, looked down on whole grains, ate small quantities of pasta as a side dish, hunted wild game such as rabbits and small birds, often went without vegetables, and generally ate as much saturated animal fat as they could get their hands on.
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Almost every peasant kept a small herd of goats, or sheep. These animals were raised mostly for their milk, which was drunk raw, made into curds, made into a huge variety of full-fat cheeses, and widely used in cooking. The milk was unpasteurized and always full-fat. These dairy products were a huge part of their diet. The meat prized by the Mediterranean people was not lean, but fatty, consisting mostly of pork, lamb, and goat. Butter and lard were widely used in cooking, along with olive oil. While olive oil was widely used, it was used in addition to, not instead of animal fats.
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Salting food was the main way of preserving food, given the warm climate, and the Mediterranean peoples were masters of salting fish, cheeses, and meat.
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Meat is perhaps the food most prized by the peoples of the Mediterranean. Meat was often difficult to get, as the flocks of sheep and goats were needed mainly for their milk, and the people were often poor. Nevertheless, pigs were widely raised, and made into a multitude of sausages, which were eaten throughout the year.
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Because of the often arid climate, vegetables and fruits were only available in season, though many were preserved by drying. There were a number of times during the year when little fresh produce was available. Beans and potatoes were widely available, and often eaten. Grains usually meant bread, which was usually not whole grain, and usually eaten with butter, or olive oil, or pork lard. In fact, raw pork lard smeared on bread is a traditional combination in rural Italy.
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Fish was eaten (especially when meat was forbidden during Lent and other such religious events), but it was usually salted or dried. Because of the lack of roads, it was very hard to get fresh fish to the hills and mountains, even on islands like Corsica and Sardinia.
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As discussed above, the variety of available fruits and vegetables was limited, and seasonal. The supply of food was often limited, and it is doubtful that most people ate nine servings of anything a day. Most calories came from dairy products, the full-fat cheeses and milk produced by the herds.
The medical and food industries have tried to portray the low-fat, low-protein, high-carb diet they favor as being traditional. It is not traditional. In fact, no traditional people anywhere, in all of history, ever ate a diet like this. �Mediterranean� sounds a lot better than �medical,� but the diet they advocate is the medical diet. The only thing the medical diet has in common with the Mediterranean diet is the first three letters of their names.
That article is total crap. All my family is from Greece, save a few non-Greeks that married into the family.
In the old days especially Greeks did not eat meat everyday, even Americans did not until the rise of the modern meat packing industry centered in Chicago that Upton Sinclair described in his novel. They ate alot of vegetables compared to Americans. Greeks even go to gather dandelions and other "weeds" to boil, then they mash up garlic and potato and add olive oil, to eat it. When my father came from Greece we gathered this weed from the backyard, that the Greek calls vleta(I don't know its name in English) and I ate it in the same manner, it tasted very good. This is just to give you an idea, since I never have seen a "regular American" go to gather "weeds" to eat, but my family did it all the time growing up.
That guy is another of those disreputable Western Price Foundation people. He advocates alot of poor health practices.
That article is total crap. All my family is from Greece, save a few non-Greeks that married into the family.
In the old days especially Greeks did not eat meat everyday, even Americans did not until the rise of the modern meat packing industry centered in Chicago that Upton Sinclair described in his novel. They ate alot of vegetables compared to Americans. Greeks even go to gather dandelions and other "weeds" to boil, then they mash up garlic and potato and add olive oil, to eat it. When my father came from Greece we gathered this weed from the backyard, that the Greek calls vleta(I don't know its name in English) and I ate it in the same manner, it tasted very good. This is just to give you an idea, since I never have seen a "regular American" go to gather "weeds" to eat, but my family did it all the time growing up.
That guy is another of those disreputable Western Price Foundation people. He advocates alot of poor health practices.
Hey: Decanes malakias! (I flunked out of greek school). My relatives on my mom's side gathered vleeta and some still do. My dad was telling me when he was young (in pittsburgh) they ate dandelion greens, bread and lentil soup for the most part.
From what I have been told from my goat people, goat meat is very lean.... If the animal is grass fed and not grain fed, the meat will be leaner... So it basically depends on what you feed your animals. My goat lady feeds her milk goats some grain, but for the most part they eat the pasture.... her meat goats are total grass fed. Raw milk has CLA which is good for weight loss (pasturized milk doesnt) I will continue using butter over margarine. and i will continue using whole unpasturized milk over the store bought crap..
__________________ God is and all is well
~John Greenleaf Whittier~
the REAL Mediterranean diet
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