Quinn - Easy Mediterranean

Sue Quinn is a respected cookbook author and food writer based in the UK. Her books span a range of cuisines, from Japanese to vegan cookery, with an emphasis on healthy eating. Sues recipes and articles have appeared in the UKs leading food titles, including The Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, and Delicious and BBC Good Food magazines. Sue was strongly influenced by the cooking of the Italian, Greek and Lebanese communities of Sydney, where she was born and raised. A former national newspaper journalist and foreign correspondent, she has also drawn on her extensive travels for inspiration for recipes and food writing.

Doctors and scientists around the world hail the Mediterranean diet as the healthiest possible way to eat, linking it to lower risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and other illnesses. Easy Mediterranean celebrates this nutritious and, most importantly, delicious approach to food. Sue Quinn combines the vibrant flavours of the countries that hug the Mediterranean Sea to create fresh and contemporary dishes that taste wonderful and are also good for you. Vegetables, fruit, grains, legumes and seafood take centre stage in 100 recipes with meat, poultry and sweet dishes in the mix, too. All are easy to prepare and share, reflecting a cornerstone of the Mediterranean approach: that food should be a pleasure to be enjoyed with friends and family.

Contents

The Mediterranean diet

The traditional Mediterranean way of eating, long praised for its health benefits, is commonly described as a diet but this is a term I loathe. To me, diet has connotations of feeling hungry, strict eating regimes and most hateful of all calorie counting. None of these has anything to do with the Mediterranean diet and they dont carry any truck with me anymore (although there was a time when they did). The truth is, the so-called Mediterranean diet is a collection of wonderful and delicious eating patterns followed by people in the region, and it is now widely recognised as the healthiest approach to food in the world.

Eating Mediterranean-style does involve filling your shopping basket with certain foods, to be sure: yoghurt and cheese, olive oil, fruit, leafy greens, nuts, seafood, whole grains and pulses are cornerstones of the Mediterranean kitchen. Ideally, it involves falling into a rhythm with the seasons and eating the freshest produce possible, when its at its very best. Red meat is eaten now and then, and sugar is reserved for special occasions. But the Mediterranean diet is as much a lifestyle as an eating pattern because it also involves being active and enjoying food, both cooking it and sharing meals with friends and family.

If youre looking for a diet book that contains a prescriptive programme of foods to eat and avoid in order to lose weight or achieve some other specific health aim, this volume isnt for you. If you want to embrace the healthy eating habits of the Mediterranean and enjoy the physical benefits, delicious food and wonderful flavours and ingredients of the region, welcome.

A bit of history

The Mediterranean diet as a healthy eating model, so to speak, is usually traced back to the work of American scientist Ancel Keys. In 1952, impressed by previous studies showing low rates of heart disease on the Greek island of Crete, he set out to explore why Mediterranean eating patterns were so healthy. For 25 years he investigated the diet, lifestyle and heart disease rates of middle-aged men from seven countries, the results of which were published in his famous Seven Countries Study.

The findings might appear unremarkable today, but at the time they were pioneering. Keys found that blood cholesterol, blood pressure, diabetes and smoking were risk factors for heart disease. He concluded that the traditional diets of Mediterranean people in the 1950s and 60s protected them from premature death from heart disease and other illnesses. He identified that these diets were mostly plant-based and contained only small amounts of animal foods. Olive oil was the principal fat, alcohol was consumed in moderation and lifestyles involved plenty of physical activity.

Over the intervening years, a vast amount of research has been done to build on Keys work. In 2013, UNESCO added the Mediterranean diet of Greece, Italy, Spain, Morocco, Portugal, Croatia and Cyprus to the list of cultural treasures (or Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity).

The health benefits

For decades, the traditional Mediterranean diet has been praised for being the healthiest in the world and evidence continues to mount that it can help reduce the risk of conditions as varied as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, dementia and even infertility. The mountain of research has reached Everest proportions and covers a wide variety of health problems, but some of the key benefits are in the following areas.

Heart health numerous studies link a Mediterranean diet to reduced risk of heart disease. A 2013 study of almost 7500 men and women at risk of heart disease found that a Mediterranean diet supplemented with olive oil or nuts reduced the risk of heart disease and stroke by 30 per cent.

Type 2 diabetes a 2014 review of available research found the risk of developing type 2 diabetes was reduced by 23 per cent by sticking to a Mediterranean diet.

Dementia numerous studies suggest that a Mediterranean diet can reduce the risk of dementia. A 2015 review of available research found that it was apotential strategy in reducing cognitive decline among the elderly.

Chronic disease a 2003 study looked at the diets of more than 22 000 people in Greece over four years. It found that the closer people followed a traditional Mediterranean diet, the less likely they were to die from either heart disease or cancer. Overall, people following the Mediterranean diet most closely were 25 per cent less likely to die during the study period than those who were not.

The Mediterranean diet at a glance

Food habits vary from country to country in the Mediterranean, of course, which makes it difficult to ascribe one diet to the entire region. However, there are many foods and eating habits common to Mediterranean countries and a number of studies have been done to identify the most health-giving features of them all. The Mediterranean Diet Foundation (MDF) revised its guidelines in 2011 after pulling together the latest research. The MDF reconfirmed that plant-based meals sit at the heart of the Mediterranean diet, and it set out recommended intakes of core foods. Importantly, there are factors other than food that contribute to the diets healthiness, including a relaxed attitude to eating and plenty of sunshine and physical activity. The following is a good guide to what it means to follow a Mediterranean-style diet, based on the MDFs recommendations. But remember: this is only a guide to shape your eating habits, its not a prescription.