Here's an excerpt from the NY Times article:
"The traditional diet, low in saturated fats and high in nutrients like flavonoids, was based on vegetables, fruit, unrefined grains, olive oil for cooking and for flavoring, and a bit of wine — all consumed on a daily basis.
Fish, nuts, poultry, eggs, cheese and sweets were weekly additions. Red meat, refined sugar or flour, butter and other oils or fats were consumed rarely, if at all.
Research on the diet took off in the 1990s, as scientists noted that people in Mediterranean countries lived longer and had low rates of serious disease despite a penchant for patently unhealthy habits like smoking and drinking. But that protection is now seen as rapidly eroding.
A generation ago, the typical diet in all Mediterranean countries complied with nutritional recommendations by the World Health Organization that less than 10 percent of calories come from saturated fats and that less than 300 milligrams of cholesterol be consumed per day.
Greece, Italy, Spain and Morocco have even asked Unesco to designate the diet as an “intangible piece of cultural heritage,” a testament to its essential value as well as its potential extinction."This last paragraph is a real slap in the face, to me it says, "hey wake up, food isn't mundane, its important, sacred, cultural..it really has value.."
To read the whole article click here or the title above,
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/24/world/europe/24diet.html?ex=1379995200&en=ea0d87fc1c4f49e7&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
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