Rachel Berman - Mediterranean Diet For Dummies

Mediterranean Diet For Dummies

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

Copyright 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2013942768

ISBN 978-1-118-71525-3 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-118-71530-7 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-71533-8 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-71534-5 (ebk)

Manufactured in the United States of America

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Introduction

O n the television, on radio, and in newspapers and magazines (both print and online), were bombarded with ads for diets that purport to melt away the unwanted pounds, books touting proven diet weight loss plans, and rumor mill diets that usually involve some whacky dietary requirement, like eating only peanut butter and pickles for three days straight or some other such nonsense.

Heres a not-too-well-hidden secret: These diets things dont work. At least not in terms of losing weight and not in terms of improving health. A diet that does work is the Mediterranean diet.

What makes this diet different? Its not really a diet, at least not the give up all the good stuff you love and live on celery sticks and sugar-free popsicles variety. Instead, its a way of eating and living that celebrates good food, connections to family and friends, stress management, and work and play. In other words, its a lifestyle that embraces all that life has to offer.

Whats truly amazing, however, is that this lifestyle isnt some fad: Its existed in the Mediterranean region for years, where folks have been so healthy living longer and avoiding health conditions that have plagued people in other parts of the world that researchers took notice. Over decades of study and numerous research projects, they demonstrated a direct link between the diet and beneficial health outcomes.

About This Book

With all the information floating around out there about the Mediterranean diet, youve probably heard dribs and drabs about the good things it does (reduces the risk of diabetes, for example) and how it does it (it involves using a lot of olive oil or nuts, for instance). You may even have heard inaccurate information (you cant eat red meat anymore).

This book puts all the key information in one place, describing the conditions that the diet has been shown to positively influence, identifying the key food groups that make up the Mediterranean diet food pyramid, outlining the diets key principles, and explaining how to incorporate these principles into your own life.

Its quite a bit of information, and to help you find what youre looking for, weve divided the discussions into parts, each focusing on a particular topic. One part, for example, is devoted to the health conditions and another to the key foods in the diet. This organization lets you go directly to the information that most interests you. And for those discussion that arent vital to your understanding of the Mediterranean diet, we identify them as skippable by putting them in a shaded box or marking them with a special icon.

Within this book, you may also note that some web addresses break across two lines of text. If youre reading this book in print and want to visit one of these web pages, simply key in the web address exactly as its noted in the text, pretending as though the line break doesnt exist. If youre reading this as an e-book, youve got it easy just click the web address to be taken directly to the web page.

And because this book includes a chapter with recipes, weve established a few conventions to avoid any confusion:

All eggs are large.

All milk is low-fat unless otherwise specified.

All pepper is freshly ground black pepper unless otherwise specified.

All salt is kosher.

All temperatures are Fahrenheit (see the appendix to convert Fahrenheit temperatures to Celsius).

All lemon and lime juice is freshly squeezed.