Mediterranean diet

The diversity of local Mediterranean food elements is not known in detail, but offers itself to search for new vegetables, salads, fruits and spices which could be used in to enrich diets outside their region of origin. Most amid those interesting local elements are edible wild plants and weeds. Ethnobotanical research has identified ca. 2,300 different plant and fungi taxa, which are gathered and consumed in the Mediterranean. Among these,
1,000 are only consumed in one single zone, therefore are strictly local. The percentage of local gathered food plant (GFP) taxa (present in 5 samples), is higher in the main centers of diversity at the periphery of the Mediterranean (Sahara, Alps, Caucasus, Canary Islands, the Levant). Islands (Sicily, Sardinia, Crete, Cyprus) also show a high proportion. Endemism of GFP taxa only accounts for a limited number of these ‘ethnobotanical endemics’ (only ca. 350 are endemic/ endangered species). On the other hand, only a few taxa – 30 occurring in...

Background: Evidence from European countries has suggested significant protective effects of the Mediterranean diet (MD) on body weight and its related health parameters. However, effects of the MD among the U.S. population remain unclear. We therefore conducted a systematic review on the state of evidence regarding the association of adherence to an MD and body weight among the U.S. population.

Written by a diverse team of Midwesterners, this little book is an exploration of the Mediterranean diet - its associated history, agriculture, biology, philosophy, botany, ingredients, and lifestyle - and how this diet can be adapted and celebrated in the American Heartland.

It’s a book for people who share a zeal for healthy food, healthy minds, and healthy hearts.

It’s a book for people who love cooking, love living, and love feeling their very best.

It’s a book for people who want to feed their bodies and their souls.

While this book does contain some incredible recipes curated from some of the most exciting chefs of the High Plains, it’s not just a “cookbook.” (Or a “health book.” Or a “diet book,” for that matter.) Rather, this book is an amazing smorgasbord of principles and particulars - a kind of eclectic community table, a table at which we can all sit, share, learn, and enjoy. In this case, the table is loaded with some truly life-changing ideas that will transform the way you eat and live.

Cardiovascular risk factors are known to exacerbate high-saturated fatty acid meal (HSFAM)-induced endothelial dysfunction, but the influence of subclinical metabolic dysregulations and the acute impact of a single mixed Mediterranean-type meal (MMM) remains unknown. Thus, this study has the objective to evaluate the metabolic and vascular effect of such meals in healthy subjects with or without subclinical fasting metabolic dysregulations. Twenty-eight healthy males without overt cardiovascular risk factors randomly ingested 1 of 2 isocaloric meals on separate days. Plasma metabolic markers, fatty acid (FA) profile, and endothelial function (flow-mediated dilatation; FMD) were assessed at baseline and 2 and 4 h after meal ingestion. Unsupervised hierarchical clustering identified 2 subgroups of participants (n = 11 and 17) differing by their baseline metabolic profiles. The MMM did not significantly alter postprandial endothelial function in all subjects, irrespective of baseline m...

Este estudio establece la relacion entre el cumplimiento de las directrices gubernamentales de actividad fisica (una hora de actividad fisica moderada o vigorosa, MVPA, cinco veces a la semana), la condicion fisica saludable, la calidad de la dieta y otras variables en una muestra de escolares de Extremadura (Espana). Se ha utilizado un t-test para calcular las diferencias de condicion fisica entre los grupos, de acuerdo con el cumplimiento de las mencionadas directrices de actividad fisica. Se ha establecido un coeficiente de regresion logistica multinomial para determinar las diferencias entre el grupo con mejor condicion fisica (= percentil 75) y el grupo con peor condicion fisica (= percentil 25), en funcion del sexo, indice de masa corporal, actividad fisica, indice mediterraneo de calidad de la dieta y tamano de la poblacion. El cumplimiento de las directrices de actividad fisica se relaciona con mejor fuerza de prension en la mano izquierda (p <0,05), mayor potencia de las...

Dietary patterns high in refined starches, sugar, and saturated and trans-fatty acids, poor in natural antioxidants and fiber from fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and poor in omega-3 fatty acids may cause an activation of the innate immune system, most likely by excessive production of proinflammatory cytokines associated with a reduced production of anti-inflammatory cytokines. The Mediterranean Diet (MedDiet) is a nutritional model inspired by the traditional dietary pattern of some of the countries of the Mediterranean basin. This dietary pattern is characterized by the abundant consumption of olive oil, high consumption of plant foods (fruits, vegetables, pulses, cereals, nuts and seeds); frequent and moderate intake of wine (mainly with meals); moderate consumption of fish, seafood, yogurt, cheese, poultry and eggs; and low consumption of red meat, processed meat products and seeds. Several epidemiological studies have evaluated the effects of a Mediterranean pattern as p...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Epidemiological data have shown an inverse association between the consumption of polyphenol-rich foods and the risk of cardiovascular disease or overall mortality. A comprehensive estimation of individual polyphenol intake in nutritional cohorts is needed to gain a better understanding of this association. The aim of this study was to estimate the quantitative intake of polyphenols and the major dietary sources in the PREDIMED (PREvención con DIeta MEDiterránea) cohort using individual food consumption records. METHODS AND RESULTS: The PREDIMED study is a large, parallel-group, multicentre, randomised, controlled 5-year feeding trial aimed at assessing the effects of the Mediterranean diet on the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease. A total of 7200 participants, aged 55-80 years, completed a validated 1-year food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) at baseline. Polyphenol consumption was calculated by matching food consumption data from the FFQ with the rece...

Little is known about the efficacy of personalized nutrition (PN) interventions for improving consumption of a Mediterranean diet (MedDiet). The objective was to evaluate the effect of a PN intervention on dietary changes associated with the MedDiet. Participants (n = 1607) were recruited into a 6-mo, Internet-based, PN randomized controlled trial (Food4Me) designed to evaluate the effect of PN on dietary change. Participants were randomly assigned to receive conventional dietary advice [control; level 0 (L0)] or PN advice on the basis of current diet [level 1 (L1)], diet and phenotype [level 2 (L2)], or diet, phenotype, and genotype [level 3 (L3)]. Dietary intakes from food-frequency questionnaires at baseline and at 6 mo were converted to a MedDiet score. Linear regression compared participant characteristics between high (>5) and low (≤5) MedDiet scores. Differences in MedDiet scores between treatment arms at month 6 were evaluated by using contrast analyses. At baseline, high...

What you eat, how much and when, are all important to your overall health.
Your diet affects not just your health, but the health of the 10-100 trillions of microbes that reside within your large intestine.
This article examines the role that popular diets play in the diversity, stability and health of your gut microbiome.

Abstract
This paper deals with the Mediterranean Diet as a potential tool for increasing knowledge and promoting a sustainable development especially in least developed and developing regions. The confirmation of the MD as an Intangible Heritage of Humanity, recognized by UNESCO in 2010, is producing a significant social effect in the seven nations and communities involved. In addition in 2012 the MD has been included by the FAO at the top of the list of the most sustainable diets in the planet. The double recognition of this life style is generating a new approach to this cultural heritage by the stakeholders who are progressively recognizing that it may become a new tool to develop green economy and eco-tourism. To this end the author analyses the real and mythological genealogy of the MD in order to bring out its cultural, economic and social potentiality.

Food - its cultivation, preparation and communal consumption - has long been considered a form of cultural heritage. A dynamic, living product, food creates social bonds as it simultaneously marks off and maintains cultural difference. In bringing together anthropologists, historians and other scholars of food and heritage, this volume closely examines the ways in which the cultivation, preparation, and consumption of food is used to create identity claims of 'cultural heritage' on local, regional, national and international scales. Contributors explore a range of themes, including how food is used to mark insiders and outsiders within an ethnic group; how the same food's meanings change within a particular society based on class, gender or taste; and how traditions are 'invented' for the revitalization of a community during periods of cultural pressure. Featuring case studies from Europe, Asia and the Americas, this timely volume also addresses the complex processes of classifying, designating, and valorizing food as 'terroir,' 'slow food,' or as intangible cultural heritage through UNESCO. By effectively analyzing food and foodways through the perspectives of critical heritage studies, this collection productively brings two overlapping but frequently separate theoretical frameworks into conversation.

Endorsements



Richard Wilk, Indiana University, USA:
How can something as perishable as food become a concrete connection with the past? This imaginative and sophisticated collection of case studies shows us how cuisines can both unite and divide people, connecting daily routine meals with lofty ideals of nationality and global citizenship. It is full of convincing evidence that communities are not just imagined, they are also eaten.

Ted Bestor, Harvard University, USA and author of Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center of the World:
This path-breaking collection examines cuisine and cultural heritage as they create and reinforce culinary identities across shifting planes of local, national, and transnational contexts. The essays, by leading specialists in food studies as well as by young scholars, focus on the US, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Slovenia, Spain, France, and Germany, as well as on UNESCO’s role in promoting cultural heritage movements. An appetizing world tour of culinary heritage, and a must-read for serious food specialists.’



Reviews


Journal of Folklore Research - Susan Eleuterio, Gaucher College:
This collection of thoughtful and well-written essays … successfully achieves the authors’ goal of articulating food practice and its role in heritage more deeply than categories and labels. These localized examinations of the complicated interactions involved in the production, culinary processes, eating and, yes, consumerization of food provide new insights into the true complexity of examining and defining “food as cultural heritage.”


AllegraLab: Anthropology, Law, Art and World (www.alegralaboratory.net) - Special Book Symposium featuring Edible Identities:
- Ivan Sandoval Cervantes, University of Oregon:
This book is highly recommended for scholars in the social sciences and the humanities interested in the politics of food, identity and cultural heritage, especially in relation to local, regional, and national politics. Furthermore, its broad geographical focus makes it an ideal volume to include in introductory and advanced university courses. … This collection of essays reveals that there is more than meets the eye when it comes to food, authenticity, and identity. …[It] successfully provides a context in which to understand how the “macdonalization” and “extreme localisms” throughout the world are giving rise to novel and creative strategies to construct and transform “edible identities”.

-Julie Boticelli, University of East London:
The volume’s strengths lie in its bringing together of various heritage discourses around food and how these are each implicated in wider circles of affirmations and contestations.

The Usefulness of the Useless in Multisensory Wellbeing of Pompeian Diaetae. Usefulness and uselessness are concepts that lead on to other additional concepts linked to human primordial necessities, above all to the combination of architecture and food. This entails a kind of personal protection of the body both from inside and outside. Inside and outside, in turn, conjure up another combination, that of closing and opening. Closed spaces, constructed artificial fences within which everyone can find protection and, conversely, opened spaces used in order to create, in a similarly artificial way, comfortable places for man. These artificial devices, deriving from the basic necessities of protection and feeding, lead to another human necessity, that of natural wellbeing. This is a balance of contrasts that, in contemporary society, is undergoing a role reversal. Food, debuting as a necessity, a usefulness, is taking on an aesthetic and transitional value, and is becoming a useless protagonist staged in the modern theatre of commerce and advertising. Rediscovering the ancient balance between the useless, expressed as artificial illusion, and the useful, as a primary asset, leads us to rediscover the original meaning of " Mediterranean Diet " , which is perfectly reflected in the Pompeian domus.

רקע: בעקבות משבר הקורונה שפקד את העולם, מחקר זה מבקש לבדוק את הרגלי התזונה והפעילות הגופנית בקרב אוכלוסיית הסטודנטים בישראל. המחקר מתמקד בסטודנטים להוראה, שיהפכו בעתיד להיות מורים, מתוך נקודת הנחה שמחנך השומר על אורח חיים בריא והמקדם את בריאותו האישית יהיה מורה שיוכל לשמש דוגמה לתלמידיו.
מטרות המחקר: לבדוק את השינוי שחל באורח החיים של הסטודנטים בדגש על הרגלי התזונה והפעילות גופנית בזמן מגפת ה־19 COVID בהשוואה לתקופת טרום־המגפה.

The health conditions with the nutrition habits of the individuals are related each other. Distinctive nutirion habits of the different societies may cause many diseases but also, this diseases can be prevented with nutrition habits. The knowledge and the acts of the children about eating habits have quite importance in order to prevent the health disorders that they may have in their further ages.
İn these days, the Mediterranean diet is a recommended form of nutrition for the prevention of the nutritional diseases in children and adult individuals and maintain a healthy life. The aim of this study is making an adaptation to Turkey of Mediterranean Diet Quality – KIDMED, a scale that commonly used in the World which developed by Serra Majer and colleagues to determine the validity and reliability. The scale has 16 phrases and can be scored as 1-0. The study was conducted with the attendence of 440 students from 6th, 7th and 8th grades.
As a result of the evaluation of the data, the reliability value (KR-20) was found as 0.72. The findings of the scale with acceptable levels of reliability have shown that the scale can be used in Turkey. Therefore, the scale is expected to be an important resource for the researchers working in the field of nutrition.