But just like so many well-meaning researchers who purport to employ ‘THE’ Mediterranean diet while their dietary intervention is actually just a rough approximation, I can’t claim that what I ate over my month in Greece was an identical replica of what the locals were munching on circa 1960.
The majority of meals absolutely ticked every tenet of what we’ve come to associate with this style of eating:
💪Dominated by Vegetables e.g. 9 serves a day
💪A few foraged Fruits e.g. 2 serves
💪Olive oil over everything!! e.g. up to 8 serves
💪Loaded with Legumes AND Grains e.g. up to 13 serves!!
But of course the ‘cereal’ serves in my month-long feast were primarily presented in the form of *BREAD*. Yep gluten-full, yeast-abundant typically white, bread! And rather than ‘our daily bread’ try…thrice daily bread 🤯 None of us being bread-eaters back home we tried to initially politely decline the *BASKET OF BREAD* that automatically arrived on every table. every time! This, in turn, was received by the waitstaff with either SHOCK or LAUGHTER😂 and often even a genuinely astounded, ‘Why not?!’ Ring any bells for anyone else? And to be honest, this was a question, we ended up asking ourselves. Because, while none of us would cope with that kind of bread burden in Australia – digestive and or energy-wise – we were right as rain wiping up all the oil and left over sauce off our plate with big pieces of the fluffy lovely stuff!
Add to this some other things I would never dream of back home:
🤯Adding sugar to my coffee – hey if you’ve tasted Greek coffee you’ll know this is non-negotiable!
🤯I’m a ‘grilled gal’ over fried but in Greece I became a fan of fried aubergine, zucchini you name it!
🤯Eating almost without pause – grazing*lazing*grazing – and not even extended overnight fasting which is my norm
🤯Executing a ‘seek and destroy’ policy on pastries like this…
So how is it that with all these dietary demons I felt great? Full of energy, no GIT issues, and while my clothes don’t fit like they did before my trip, it’s in the opposite direction of what you might suspect! But of course, the adoption of the Mediterranean diet AND these transgressions were not the only things that changed over my month…and just like speculation on other elements of lifestyle, which may convey the health benefits to the Mediterranean people, we might need to examine these as well…more to come…(again, if you can bear it!!!)
