The magnificent diet of the Mediterranean region has been evolving for thousands of years. The history of the re gion, coupled with its distinct (though widely various) climate and the pervasive influence of the sea, has shaped the choice of foods and the types of cooking so characteristic of traditional Mediterranean culture. Bread, olive oil, and wine—which continue to play a significant role in the Mediterranean diet today—accompanied meals in ancient times. The cultivated vegetables and other plant-based foods so central to the diet date back to Neolithic times. According to archeological evidence and depictions and descriptions of food and meals in the art and literature of ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, ancient populations probably relied primarily on plant foods, with only occasional indulgence in meat and seafood.
More recent studies of the Mediterranean diet, from the 1950s and 1960s, reveal eating habits and preferences simi lar to the ancient diet: a primarily plant food–based diet that included minimal processing, whole grains, olive oil as the primary fat source, and animal products (with the exception of cheese in some areas and yogurt in some areas) consumed only a few times per month. The groundbreaking Rockefel ler Foundation study of the Cretan diet around 1950 stated that “olives, cereal grains, pulses, wild greens and herbs, and fruits, together with limited quantities of goat meat and milk, game, and fish have remained the basic Cretan foods for forty centuries...no meal was complete without bread... [and] Olives and olive oil contributed heavily to the energy intake.” This study, originally undertaken to de termine how the people of Greece could improve their diets after World War II, concluded that the diet couldn’t get much better.
While the Mediterranean diet today strays from its original roots somewhat (due to the “McDonald’s invasion” and other nutritionally tragic “modern” influences, such as the growing popularity of heavily processed convenience foods), the Mediterranean diet in the first half of the twenti eth century, with appropriate modifications to make it more suitable and convenient for contemporary eating, lives at the heart of this article.
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