In an attempt to force one way of eating across the world, proponents of the Mediterranean Diet eliminate local culture based eating patterns. One nutrition academic calls it systemic racism – pushing a diet that is a fictional construct of a subset of what people in the area actually eat, and is a subset based on what was seen as palatable to other white Europeans. It cuts out cultural foods of everyone else in the world, saying we must eat like a hypothetical (but fake) Mediterranean resident.
More here on the topic: Burt_MedDiet.pdf
And here: The Mediterranean Diet Is a Healthy Eating Plan—But It’s Far From Universal
“Experts explain in great detail that a major problem with the Mediterranean diet is that it doesn’t take other cultures into account.”
As they point out, the Mediterranean diet -with cheese and yogurt – is promoted globally – including for Asians, where 60% of the population is lactose intolerance.
Nearly all studies of the Mediterranean diet are on white people and mostly white males.
It’s a beautiful story and a terrific seasoning for our meal. The only problem is it’s not true. Fifty years since the term was coined by the American physiologist Ancel Keys — and a decade and a half after UNESCO recognized it as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity — the Mediterranean diet has become a mishmash of hyperbole, half-truths and howlers, stirred together for political and commercial ends.
Amid backlash against the Green Deal and agricultural protectionism hardening across Europe, southern politicians and lobbies have weaponized a series of recipes and ingredients to fry the European Union over its liberal climate and trade policies, while boosting lucrative — and often unhealthy — exports to America and Asia.
The entire diet is based upon a lie:
“The goal is to make Americans eat better and so [Keys] builds an ideal food model,” a fictional amalgam of ingredients cultivated around the Mediterranean basin, insisted Grandi. The diet wasn’t discovered so much as invented — and Nicoterans’ leanness was due to a different ingredient: hunger.
Keys “went to the people’s houses and people were ashamed. They’d say ‘Come back tomorrow because today we won’t eat anything.’ Or they’d only have polenta or chestnut flour,” Grandi contends. Claiming such individuals enjoyed some ancient, gastronomic elixir is “really offensive to the memory of our grandparents and great-grandparents. Because they went hungry.”
Based on my now extensive reading – I think there is merit to eating whole foods that are relatively unprocessed. Processing of food removes many nutrients – the more processing, the fewer the nutrients. For this reason, diets that feature consumption of whole fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, nuts – and various meats – are closest to original food and are more likely to deliver nutrition benefits including essential vitamins and minerals.
I come at this from the perspective of someone who spent years eating a mostly vegetarian diet but ended up with serious health problems – ultimately identified as vitamin B-12 deficiency. And then heart problems which seem likely to have been caused by chronic inflammation, perhaps in part caused by a vitamin B deficiency that likely led to elevated homocysteine levels which is a known cause of artery inflammation and blockage.
The problem is nutrition (and public health) make population wide recommendations that apply to large statistical groups – but which ignore the needs of individuals.
I was unaware that there is a family history of pernicious anemia – and only today learned that I have a genetic marker in my DNA for low B-12 levels. If I follow the “plant-based” mantra promulgated by 20-something food writers pushing vegetarian propaganda, I will get sick. Note – I owned 4 books on vegetarian eating – 3 of the 4 did not mention the B-12 problem, and the one that did, mentioned it in 2 sentences on page 276 and 277. None of these plant-based promoters mention health risks. In effect, these promoters are engaged in malpractice that is causing harm to real people.
This is what’s wrong with media pushing topics they do no personally understand in detail. They are writers who lack subject knowledge, and much of what they write becomes spun by the people they quote and is effectively fiction due to its omission of critical information.
These errors are not innocent errors – I fell for the plant-based mantra and it nearly killed me. I hold these “food writers”, “health writers”, “nutrition writers” in contempt for spreading incomplete reports that lead to nearly killing people. This is not a joke.
