Embrace Your Inner Mediterranean

The best diet to boost longevity

You know a diet is more than the latest fad when everyone from bloggers to researchers to your own doctor tell you to adhere to it to stave off disease and boost longevity.

According to experts across the globe, the Mediterranean diet has many health benefits, including cancer protection, memory improvement, and heart disease prevention.

The Mediterranean encompasses many countries — including Greece, France, Italy, and Spain, to name a few. And while these countries each have their own unique gastronomies, they all share dietary elements that have enamored doctors for decades.

Traditionally, Mediterraneans consume lots of vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, beans, cereals, grains, fish, and unsaturated fats such as olive oil. They eat very little red meat. The inhabitants of Crete, Greece, and southern Italy have eaten like this for generations. Their rates of chronic disease are amongst the lowest in the world and their life expectancies are amongst the highest.

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association looked at patients’ health and diet across 30 years. The study found that for every 3 percent increase in calories consumed from plant protein, the risk of death was reduced by 10 percent. The correlation between early death and consuming more animal proteins was strongly made in the study. However, the risk begins to subside dramatically when the animal proteins are sourced from fish and chicken.

The Mediterranean diet limits the intake of refined breads, processed foods, and red meat. The big upside? It also views drinking red wine in moderation favorably. So make yourself and your loved ones a beautiful Mediterranean-friendly meal and lift your glasses to ring in 2020 as the Greeks do — “chrona pola” . . . literally, “many years!” •