Nutty researchers push benefits of Mediterranean diet

Nutty researchers push benefits of Mediterranean diet

Every January, it’s the same thing: it seems everyone adopts some screwy fad diet or another to try and atone for all of their eating indiscretions. And now a new study is trying to re-start the craze for the Mediterranean Diet.

Spanish researchers claim that this diet – along with once-a-day servings of mixed nuts – can help keep metabolic syndrome in check. (Metabolic syndrome is a conglomerate of health-threatening issues such as elevated glucose levels, high blood pressure, obesity, and high cholesterol.)

The researchers tracked more than 1,200 people between the ages of 55 and 80 who were considered to be at high risk for heart diseases associated with metabolic syndrome. The people were divided into three groups, one of which was placed on the Mediterranean diet and the nuts, which consisted of a liter of olive oil per week, along with 30 grams of mixed nuts per day.

At the end of one year, fewer people on the Mediterranean/nut plan had high triglycerides, high blood pressure, or large waist circumferences.

The Mediterranean Diet consists of lots of bread, beans, and seeds (great fare for your birds). But it severely restricts fat, instructing followers to eat less than 25 percent fat, avoid saturated fat and animal fat. Some think that Mediterranean diet is a good diet simply because it includes a lot of olive oil.

But a liter a week of olive oil? It’s not a diet that I could recommend as healthy or, for that matter, realistic. Chicken and fish are allowed in moderate amounts only. And as far as red meat? Forget it – the Mediterranean diet limits that to just a few times a month. Eggs? A max of four per week – but zero is the preferred amount.

Who eats like that?

All the olive oil in the world, as good as it is for your health, can’t replace the nutritional benefits of vital animal protein and animal fat in copious quantities. No wonder waist circumference of those in the study dropped! I bet their energy level plummeted, too, because of their lack of protein.