Open This If Kale Isn't Cutting It

Cap’n, siesta and healthy food ho!

As we venture out to life beyond the states, our focus goes directly to one cuisine, one diet in particular– the Mediterranean diet. Healthy? Check. Delicious? Check. Versatile? Checkmate. So that’s 3-0 to the american diet, but who’s counting? So, set sail for the Mediterranean, and let’s see what treasure we find!

     🏆 The (diet) Role Model

     🙌 Converting to the MD

     🥇 Win-Win-Win

     🧈 The New Butter

Stick around for the end to see the olive on top!

The (diet) Role Model:

So… what is the Mediterranean diet? Is it just red wine? Nope. Guess again. We like to think of the Mediterranean Diet to be the hallmark of nutritional adequacy. In Mediterranean countries, lunchtime is all about socializing, long and rambling conversations (the wine does help), and delicious home-cooked foods. We bring this up because a new study from Cornell University that examined the Mediterranean diet (MD) and its outstanding benefits. Before we dive into why it’s the epitome of health, let's break down what it is and why it’s so different from the Western (American) diet. 

Yep, they’re about as different as The Rock and his son, Kevin Hart. So, with no more ado, let’s convert you to this far superior diet:

Converting to the Mediterranean Diet

Fiber, the indigestible nutrient we discussed last week, is found in fruits and vegetables, and is crucial for proper digestive motility. A high-fiber diet has been linked to reducing certain cancers like colorectal cancer, lowering cholesterol as well as heavy metal absorption (These metals bind to molecules and prevents absorption. Don’t worry we’ll cover this in detail next month), and much much more. 

The MD is rich in complex carbs with low glycemic indexes (a measure for how fast food converts to energy– generally the lower the better and this avoids blood sugar spikes), making it fantastic for improving insulin resistance and avoiding energy crashes. So if you’re ever interested in having the energy of a regular person, this may be for you. 

Longevity and the MD. There is no direct correlation to this, however there is a strong correlation– you get what we mean. This can be seen by observing the long life expectancy of the top mediterranean practicing countries, like Italy (84 years) Spain (84 years) and Greece (82 years). Where’s the US? Oh, there it is, way below at 76 years young. Did you know that in the aforementioned mediterranean countries the rate of tobacco consumption is over double the US’s, yet they still seem to live a lot longer than the US! (Just in case you get any ideas, don’t take this as a tobacco pass. Smoking will absolutely still kill you, regardless of your diet).

Win-Win-Win:

When discussing the mediterranean diet it is imperative to discuss the importance of legumes in the diet. Aside from the usual downstairs burps, legumes are a miracle food that is cheap, accessible, and highly nutritious. They provide a wide array of vitamins, minerals, fiber, carbs and almost complete proteins. For you gym rats, did you know that beans can have more protein than meat? Take that Liver King! 

Let’s talk beans:

• Environmental Win: Next time you buy a pound of steak think the following– that steak contributed about 100lbs of greenhouse gases to the environment. The cattle industry contributes 7 times more greenhouse gases than the entire aviation sector. And we aren’t even going to get into how ecosystems are destroyed *cough* 80% of amazon deforestation is for cattle ranching. And yes, you can take your tinfoil hats off because this is no conspiracy, this is the reality. Legumes by contrast dont need that much room to grow when compared to other crops. They are also used in intensive farming by returning nutrients to the soil, and prevent  the soil erosion. 

• Health Win: Legumes help with everything from reducing obesity and insulin resistance to improving gut health and bone density. So yeah, not much more to add, they’re just awesome (we’re pro bean by the way).

• Money Win: As much as we all love the environment, we love to save money too. Just wait until you realize that you can do both at once! Before you say, “but the protein from lentils is very inferior to that of beef”, we’ll save you the trouble of a reading another paragraph– you’re right.

  Beef has all the required Amino Acids (AA) that we need in the perfect ratios. However you can get a similar effect by combining grains and legumes. Before we demonstrate this like a magic trick, heres proteins 101: You need 20 AA, they are essential and just like minerals we need to include them all in the diet. Alright, ready to be mind blown? Ok, beef has all 20 in adequate ratios. Rice is has 19/20 and needs lysine (the name doesn’t matter, just know that they are missing one). Lentils? They need methionine and cysteine but is also high in lysine. If you combine the two you get a superb and nutritious plant based protein that is also quite inexpensive. So you are right, but so are we.

The New Butter:

The MD uses olive oil as its main fat source to cook and season most dishes. But is it all that it’s chalked up to be? The short answer is yes. Considering that, one: it is the oil with the highest amount of monounsaturated fat (the good kind of fat that lowers bad cholesterol levels). And two: it contains over 8,000 different polyphonic compounds (antioxidants), should be enough to convince you to switch from lousy sunflower oil. But in case it wasnt enough heres a bunch of benefits to seal the deal.

O-Megas: Olive oil contains all the omegas: 3,6 and 9. However the latter is makes up the majority of its composition. Helping with everything from brain-function to preventing CVD.

Anti-Inflammatory: Olive oil will help reduce inflammation through a high amount of antioxidants that it contains and other components like the aforementioned omega 9 fatty acids that all contribute to lowering overall inflammation.

Improving our lipid profile. Substituting some of our dietary saturated fat sources (butter, lard, etc) with olive oil will improve our lipid profile protecting us even more from atherosclerosis.

Olive Oil (may) inhibit growth of Helicobacter pylori. Whats that? Oh, just a bacteria that lives in 2/3s of the population, and when it grows too much is a leading cause for ulcers. Yuck. Kill em with kindness they said.

A Word from Hippocrates

Looks like we found the treasure we were looking for– knowledge for a better life. Proper diet is the most understated component to bettering the prognostic on almost all chronic diseases, the biggest one being cancers and CVD. It would go without saying that you are what you eat.

The olive on top here would be to add some of OmniBlue’s liquid minerals to your new diet. This essentially will max your stats as Gen Z would say. You would get all of the amino acids, all of the nutrients, and all of the minerals you need. You can safely say hello to your 90’s. 

Quote of the week: “Partake in a diet of health, enriched with a bounty of minerals to fortify thyself” – Hippocrates probably.