Mediterranean Diet

I’ve been reading a whole lot about the Mediterranean Diet. Not as a diet to lose weight (though I would not be averse to dropping a few pounds) but because of the health benefits. Since, becoming a vegetarian for health reasons I have taken a keen interest in whatever could augment my diet. Augment it easily, very very easily.

As any good Superhero librarian does when confronted with a reference question I promptly went to my vast secret sources to find articles to support or refute the things I’d been reading in the news sources or on the internet. (You do know that not everything you on the internet are true, right? I thought so. Just testing you.)

After checking on WebMD, the Mayo Clinic (and if you haven’t looked at their site head over there), PubMed, and a few others I came up with a massive amount of research about the topic.

Now, I could bore you into unconsciousness with the approximately 439, 378 reports, research papers, study reports, evidential analyses, and patient surveys. I could rattle on a long-winded explanation of the findings, results and conclusions but I’m pretty sure you people have things to do today.

In the studies I’ve read, (okay, I’ll fess up. I only read the abstracts. Come on people! Have you read these things? They are about as boring as the day is long. They could make a hyper-active, over kinetic, hyped up on caffeine cocaine addict pass out. ) this type of diet offers terrific benefits for cardiac, cancer, longevity health along with a host of others.

So let me sum up.

It seems that a Mediterranean style diet is a pretty good idea.

What is the Mediterranean Diet?

Glad you asked. (you didn’t ask? You meant to)

It’s a diet that favors lots of veggies, nuts, grains, and legumes and very little meat.

So I’ve decided that I’m brutally forcing gently encouraging my family to adopt a more Mediterranean diet. Not that we already aren’t eating this way but I’m going to step it up a notch. With that in mind I went out to the lovely Half Priced Book store in my neighborhood to find a topic specific cookbook.

Look what I found:

Vegetarian Times Cooks Mediterranean

It called to me in a gently reassuring voice; “Michele – you want me. You know you do. Add me to your already burgeoning cookbook shelves. I’m pretty and shiny. I have pictures. I’m fairly cheap”. Really, How could I resist?

Now, my pretties I will be bludgeoning bashing offering up the recipes I try from this cookbook on the Friday Foodie.

But today is Monday and we all know what that means. Go meatless!

Love,

M

PS. As a librarian I couldn’t just leave you without a bibliography now could I? Are you into boring reading material? Are you having trouble sleeping at night? If so check out these links. Notice the colon in the titles? That means they were probably written by academic types. Making them exceedingly boring.

Mediterranean Diet May Boost Longevity

Mediterranean diet: Choose this heart-healthy diet option

The Mediterranean diet revisited: evidence of its effectiveness grows.
Sofi F.