[helph67]

"The Mediterranean diet permits the consumption of meat; however, it emphasizes moderation and lean sources. Poultry, such as chicken and turkey, and fish, particularly fatty types like salmon and mackerel, are preferred, while red meats are to be enjoyed sparingly and in smaller portions." https://mediterraneandietguru.com/can-you-eat-meat-on-the-me...

BTW people who use the Mediterranean diet tend to live long, healthy lives.

[bsder]

> BTW people who use the Mediterranean diet tend to live long, healthy lives.

They also tend to walk a ton and the portions are vastly smaller.

Is it the "Mediterranean Diet" or "Living in Italy" that causes the difference?

We joked about members of our vacation party who would have first, second and third gelato for the day. However, totaling that all up was still less than a single sitting of gelato in the US. A slice of cake was 3-4 bites and not an eighth of a 9" pan. etc.

[poulsbohemian]

^ This is key... I live in a "blue zones" area and it is apparent to me that you can't cargo cult this stuff, IE: it isn't a matter of just copying one part of it, but all the pieces that work together. And, even if you account for all the lifestyle stuff, genetics can still get you. So much emphasis is put on the food part of longevity, but I'm convinced that stress and lack of community (IE: loneliness) are just as much of a problem in overall health.

[smileysteve]

And if we're talking about centenarians in blue zones, we also have to account for recovering from world war 1, world war 2 which introduce famine and "accidental" deaths

[AlchemistCamp]

No Mediterranian country has a life expectancy as long as Hong Kong’s which also leads the world in meat consumption per capita.

https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy/

As a whole, the region is the second longest-lived after East Asia (Japan + 4 tigers).

[elwebmaster]

Not to pick on your comment but could you share which Mediterranean diet relies heavily on turkey? Chicken for sure, fish for sure (not lake-grown farm salmon full of antibiotics). How about roasted pig and roasted lamb? In all Mediterranean countries I have visited, that’s the food I have seen people enjoy. People have lived since millennia enjoying all the goods our Earth has to offer in moderation. The size of our planet has not changed. The population of most nations has not changed or has decreased. Then why the need to change our habits? Because the population of certain regions is growing out of control? That’s their problem to solve.

[strken]

The "Mediterranean diet" is its own thing and doesn't match the diet of actual Mediterranean countries in this century, and arguably wasn't even particularly close to the original 1960s populations that were studied. Other diets based on it, like ModiMed, move even further away from the original.

I agree that the name is silly and misleading, but that doesn't invalidate studies about its health benefits.