Health & Beauty Tips

The way people eat in countries like Italy and Greece has had a nutritional model patterned after it. It is called the Mediterranean diet. People started paying attention to it after it became well publicized that people living in that part of the world have a much fewer occurrences of cancer and other diseases.

First developed by an American doctor in the 40s, this way of eating has just only recently become noticed by Americans in the late 1990s. Certainly better late than never, there are some differences between the Mediterranean Diet and the traditional American diet worth noting.

The US Food Pyramid is markedly different from the Mediterranean Diet food pyramid. The Mediterranean Diet contains very little red meat, for starters. They do use red meat in their recipes, but not frequently, and in little portions. And whereas the US Food Pyramid lumps all the different kinds of meat into one category, fish takes up a big portion in the Mediterranean Diet food pyramid.

In Mediterranean fare, whole grain foods make up the main staple. That includes rice, bread, couscous, potatoes, and similar foods. Nuts and beans are another important part of the Mediterranean diet. So are fruits and vegetables in particular. This is something both food pyramids share in common, though the recommended quantities are fairly different.

While the Mediterranean Diet food pyramid has these separate from one another, the traditional US food pyramid has all of the forms of protein lumped together in one, making it difficult to see what specific parts each type of food should play in one's diet.

The reason why people have finally begun to pay attention to this Mediterranean way of thinking and eating is that they have been discovered to have shockingly low rates of cancer and other such diseases.

You'll find plenty of red wine being used in the Mediterranean Diet. Red wine has really powerful antioxidants, and it is part of just about every meal. Mediterranean cooking also uses a lot of olive oil, which is like red wine in that it, too, has its own antioxidant properties. Check out the Mediterranean Diet food pyramid and see how it can help you live a healthier life, where you can not only look better but feel better as well.