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Live Longer With The Mediterranean Diet!
The diet is just gaining traction in the U.S., but millions of people have eaten it for thousands of years. The MAYO CLINIC says: “The Mediterranean eating style significantly reduces the risk of further heart disease in individuals who had already had a heart attack. Remarkably, this benefit was not related to any significant difference in cholesterol levels — rather other components of the diet seem to work in concert to protect the body.” http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/mediterranean-diet/CL00011 Click below for the MEDITERRANEAN DIET PYRAMID, with more information. Its proponents say, “In one study, French researchers assigned 600 heart attack survivors to follow either a Mediterranean diet or a regimen similar to the one recommended by the U.S. Government and American Heart Association. The short-term results were virtually the same: both diets reduced cholesterol levels by comparable amounts, but the long-term results were surprising. Only 8 new heart attacks occurred over the next two years in the Mediterranean group, compared to 33 in the other group.” http://www.womensheartfoundation.org/content/ Both articles mention red wine as part of the Mediterranean diet. If you don’t drink alcoholic beverages, you will be pleased to learn that purple grape juice probably works as well: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/food-and-nutrition/AN00576 ALZHEIMER’S RISK LOWERED BY MEDITERRANEAN DIET “Americans who ate a Mediterranean diet--lots of fruits, vegetables, legumes, cereals, some fish and alcohol, and little dairy and meat--had a reduced risk for Alzheimer's disease as they aged.” The Mediterranean diet emphasizes vegetables and fruits rich in folates and includes a fair bit of fish, all of which reduce Alzheimer’s risk. http://seniorjournal.com/NEWS/Alzheimers/6-04-18-AlzheimersRisk.htm DELICIOUS MEDITERRANEAN RECIPES If you decide to go with the Mediterranean diet, you can look forward to some delicious food. The Internet has already recognized this possibility and is thinking up ways to make you PAY for eating Mediterranean food. Well, buy a Mediterranean cookbook if it attracts you, but there’s no need. The Internet is absolutely awash in free and wonderful Italian and Greek and Spanish recipes that call for fish, fresh produce, and olive oil. Just poke around and see what sounds good. Here are a couple of sources I noticed: http://italianfood.about.com/od/fishdishes/Fish_Recipes.htm; http://greekfood.about.com/od/fishentrees/ MORE ABOUT OLIVE OIL You may have noticed that the MEDITERRANEAN DIET PYRAMID called for LOTS of olive oil. And the idea has even sifted down to Weight Watchers. When we went back the last time, we found that they wanted us to eat MORE FAT. Not fat-fat, though. We still take the fat off the meat and the cream away from the milk products. They want us to eat small amounts (like two teaspoons a day) of healthy, monosaturated fat, such as that in olive oil, avocados, nuts, or fatty fish such as salmon. Here's an article by Sally Squires that explains the new oil situation:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ And this article from Web MD explains how the MEDITERRANEAN DIET, which includes olive oil, helped people lose weight AND keep it off: http://www.webmd.com/content/article/42/1671_52229 |
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