The Mediteranean diet

[Sweep]

There is surely some difference between a Mediterranean diet and a Mediterranean lifestyle - the latter usually doesn't generally include, amongst other things, a three hour commute on hideous trains/gridlocked roads to some putrid office. It includes a long nap in the afternoon and time spent in a community where people know each other. Also Mediterranean food eaten in the Med tastes better because it is grown locally and not shipped halfway around Europe.

A certain truth or two in your post but be wary of overglamourising. Some of those med areas have severe economic issues. Some of those napping/taking it easy in the afternoon may be public employees on cushy jobs they grabbed for life, sucking resources and chances for the young. Many of those young flee for these reasons and may be rubbing shoulders with you on your commute. Many of their parents expected jobs to be created on their doorstep. Families can also be oppressive. And villages can be a seething mass of fueds going back decades.

[Vorpal]

And when I've worked in Italy, it's been among professionals who worked ridiculously long hours, even by British standards, and without any afternoon naps.

[Sweep]

yes. It's a varied country. And those shop hours can mean that there is a very long day for the shop workers.

If you go back a few decades Italy was thought to have the secret of life.

Tell that to the average Italian these days and you would get a bitter laugh.

Italy isn't the Italy you see on Brit TV cookery programmes.

[axel_knutt]

Sweep, it occurred when Kahneman got a mention on the radio this morning that if you like Whyte you might like his work too. Kahneman's career was spent researching the irrational way in which people make decisions, so it's has some themes in common with Whyte.

I think it's a matter of common experience that one of the primary causes of people getting tetchy is being backed into a corner and running out of ways to defend their opinion, the religious are notorious for it. If people are embarrassed by their inability to reason rationally they lash out and accuse their opponent of being offensive in an attempt to shut them up. It's highly effective, because either people drop it because they don't want to appear rude, or at the very least the debate gets side tracked onto one about manners whilst the issue in hand gets forgotten.

A good example of this was the Charlie Hebdo shootings. In the wake of the incident people got wrapped up in an interminable debate about who is allowed to be offensive, because they were blind to the real question: what is it rational to get offended by.

(If anyone is wondering what the Whyte quote had to do with Mediterranean diets, the point was lost when the mods deleted all the relevant posts.)

[al_yrpal]

Italy isn't the Italy you see on Brit TV cookery programmes.

Aaw, love Gino. What is it like then - fat mommas stuffing spaghetti?

Al

[fishfright]

My favourite antidote to various 'miracle diets' is a quote from Michael Pollan

Eat foot, not too much, mostly plants .

This seems to get to the bottom how to eat well without the hysteria and hype of the latest front page diet / food paranoia stories

Pollan often cuts the BS down to size to expose the common sense behind eating. One of most apt I find is " At any given time there is an evil nutrient we try to drive like Satan from the food supply -- first it was saturated fats, then it was trans fat,Then there is the evil nutrient's doppelganger, the blessed nutrient. If we get enough of that we, will be healthy and maybe live forever. It's funny through history how the good and bad guys keep changing.""

[Sweep]

Z
Italy isn't the Italy you see on Brit TV cookery programmes.

Aaw, love Gino. What is it like then - fat mommas stuffing spaghetti?

Al

Gino is decent and doesn't indulge in too much of the mythmaking you get on some progs.

As to what italy is like, that is massively complicated. I could give you a reading list but it wouldn't make light reading.

Fat mammas? I fear you've seen too many dolmio ads al.

Though i hope you at least avoid the products.

Oh by the by, italy's best selling supermarket pizza is made in lancashire.

[Sweep]

Thanks for that postfishfright.

Much common sense.

Some italians i know pay folk to tell them what to eat ***.

As your author rightly says, it's basically pretty simple.

Of course for some bizarre reason, some folk crave needless complication.

And there will always be folk more than willing to profit from this.

[Cyril Haearn]

We are not near the Mediterranean, we are in Northern Europe! I have a northern European diet: porridge, pancakes, potatoes, parsnips, lentil soup, sprouts, bara brith. I often prepare more than I need and heat up the leftovers the next day.

[Canuk]

From what I've seen, a northern European diet is mostly fried food, booze and takeaways. I am living in a northern powerhouse city right enough

[Cyril Haearn]

Geographically the Arctic Ocean is "Mediterranean" so the med diet could be lots of blubber, whale fat etc. But one should avoid the internal organs of polar bears because they contain so much vitamin D.

[Cyril Haearn]

From what I've seen, a northern European diet is mostly fried food, booze and takeaways. I am living in a northern powerhouse city right enough

Here in the northern Kraftwerk we eat mostly marzipan

[Canuk]

From what I've seen, a northern European diet is mostly fried food, booze and takeaways. I am living in a northern powerhouse city right enough

Here in the northern Kraftwerk we eat mostly marzipan

Deep fried pizza..

I really can't get my head around this. Would it not be easier just to eat lard!

[al_yrpal]

Its pretty obvious that diet used to be largely determined by where you live. Around the Med - Olive Oil, Tomatoes, Peppers, Aubergines, Anchovies. Durum flour made into Pasta and Pizza. Except for the flour it was more difficult for us to source these ingredients and in some cases impossible without greenhouses only available to the landed gentry.

Before potatoes became available from South America most carbs in Britain would have come from flour - hence Bread and Pies. Rice was possibly unknown here although the Romans may have imported it?

I sometimes use really cheapo Aldi pasta sauce to which we add sweated onions and herbs from the garden. I often make home made pasta sauce with chopped tinned tomatoes, sweated onions and garlic and herbs from the garden. For extra richness I add tomato paste or pasata if its a large quantity.
A favourite Med dish is onions, peppers, courgettes, carrots, celery, leeks chopped up and sweated in a little oil, 4 oven cooked British bangers chopped up, cooked pasta - only 80 dry grams between two, and home made pasta sauce. A very hearty meal. Cheap rapeseed oil tends to get used more than olive oil. A sprinkle of grated cheese and pepper adds tbe final touch.

Italians wouldnt be able to make such a nice dish because along with most of Europe, their sausages are crap Although I sometimes add a few bits of chopped Chorizo.

Al

[mjr]

I sometimes use really cheapo Aldi pasta sauce

So instead of five minutes chopping and and hour or so simmering, you use processed food with extra sugar and chems and start to undermine the mediterranean nature of the dish from the outset?

4 oven cooked British bangers chopped up

Aren't British bangers up there with cured meats for being linked with heart attacks?

Cheap rapeseed oil tends to get used more than olive oil.

Didn't a study find that our native rapeseed oil doesn't convey the same health benefits as olive oil despite both being monounsaturated oils?