More evidence for the benefits of the Mediterranean diet

Last Wednesday, the New England Journal of Medicine published an overview of both the health benefits and deficits of various popular diets. It makes for excellent reading. And meal planning.

Photo by Sam Moghadam Khamseh on Unsplash

This will be a short Sunday missive, but I thought it was important to alert everyone here to last week’s report in the New England Journal of Medicine. (They allow you to view two articles per month for free if you sign up with your email address.) The key paragraph is the one below, which states that “The evidence is robust for a protective association between adherence to the Mediterranean diet and the following health outcomes…”:

To summarize the rest of the study (thought please read the article itself if you can), I will allow Michael Pollen, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, to do the talking for me: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” In other words, stick to whole foods; you can and sometimes should have some animal-derived proteins throughout the week; consume mostly things that grow in the ground; and avoid diets that are too restrictive. Another key paragraph, re the risks of a strictly vegan diet:

Anyway, off to eat some cucumbers, nuts, and fish. Have a lovely Father’s Day.

---