The vanishing Mediterranean diet

Fast food is everywhere

By Culinate staff

September 24, 2008

The much-vaunted Mediterranean Diet, reports the New York Times, is no longer benefiting the citizens of the Mediterranean. The culprit? Fast food, of course. As Susan Allport points out in The Queen of Fats, the health benefits of the Mediterranean Diet don’t come just from olive oil and fish but from all the wild leafy greens so common in traditional diets of the region (not to mention in the diets of the region’s chickens, goats, and other grazing animals). Now, of course, the younger generations of Greece, Italy, and the rest of the region prefer junk to greens, with concomitant rates of obesity, diabetes, and the like.