the Mediterranean diet is extremely varied and very tasty

Despite all the positive press about the benefits of eating a healthy Mediterranean diet more and more people are giving it up and resorting to more processed food which is high in salt, sugar and fat. A recent report released by the United Nations shows that the sixteen nations which have a coast on the Mediterranean are eating less fresh and natural foods such as fish, fruit and vegetables and the consumption of the extra virgin olive oil has also gone down.

Hundreds of medical reports have shown that men and women who stick to a Mediterranean diet have fewer problems with heart disease, arthritis, diabetes and obesity but the very people who invented this healthy diet seem to be the ones who are shunning it the most.

One of the biggest problems is that increasing income levels in the Mediterranean region especially in poorer countries has led to people spending more money on meat and fattier foods. The United Nations report showed that in fifteen Europe countries calorie intake rose on average by about twenty percent from1962 to 2002 but that the southern Mediterranean European countries such Italy, Spain, Cyprus, Greece and Malta had an on average 30 percent increase in calorie intake.

The report noted that now the Greek people were the fattest people in Europe and as a result 75 percent of the Greeks were either clinically overweight or obese. Other findings were that countries like Spain which previously had only had 25 percent of fat in their diet 40 years ago now had closer to 40 percent.

There is no doubt that modern lifestyles have meant that eating a traditional but Mediterranean diet is more difficult because getting fresh fruit and vegetables is much more time consuming than buying microwavable meals in a supermarket. Some people blame the fact that both men and women now work and therefore there is less time for cooking healthy meals. Parents often complain that the advertising of fast food makes it difficult for them to instil healthy eating habits into their children who want to go to McDonald’s and Burger King.

One of the advantages of the Mediterranean diet is that it is extremely varied and very tasty however despite its obvious benefits it is under siege from processed and unhealthy food. Many people argue that a tax should be placed on unhealthy food and that fresh and healthy food should be subsidised. They say that the taxes could be used to treat the thousands of obese people who go to hospital every year suffering from obesity related illnesses.