Med Instead of Meds: Intro to the Mediterranean Pattern of Eating

An introduction to the 'Med Instead of Meds' program, which promotes the Mediterranean style of eating.

Resource: 

https://medinsteadofmeds.com/

Transcript

Lindsey Edwards: 0:01

Welcome to the Extension Connection, where we connect our listeners to research-based resources to help them live better lives. I'm Lindsay Edwards, your fam family and consumer science extension agent in Polk County, and I'm here today to talk to you about the Mediterranean diet or program, as I'm gonna call it, that we at the North Carolina Extension Office like to call MED instead of meds. Med Instead of Meds is the program that was created to educate people on the Mediterranean diet, and this program teaches you how to eat Mediterranean in order to reduce your risk of chronic conditions and diseases. The program is usually taught in a six to seven week setting, and it covers seven steps to shift your diet to Mediterranean. So let's talk about why we teach this specific diet. I talk a lot about research-based information, and the Mediterranean plan is a well-researched and documented way of eating that has been proven to reduce your risk of certain cancers Is more effective than a low fat diet for weight loss, protects against cognitive decline. May improve eye health, reduces the risk of type two diabetes, helps manage blood pressure and reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease. So you can see why it's something that we promote. In NC State Extension, so we will discuss more or I'll throw in some little facts about research as we go through this podcast and we go through the seven steps. But I just wanted to show you in the beginning that this dietary plan has a lot of positive outcomes. And I'm also trying really, really hard not to use the term diet because I feel like that word has a very negative connotation. On how we view things. When you say to someone you're on a diet or you're changing your diet, it's often associated with weight loss. And this is so much more than that because it is really reducing your risk for chronic condition. So if I say diet, I'm gonna apologize for that, but I'm gonna try to refer to it as a Mediterranean way, Mediterranean pattern of eating, that sort of thing. The Mediterranean way of eating is really. Not about weight loss. That may be a side effect of eating this way, but that's not really why it is so encouraged. It promotes good, healthy things, but it doesn't necessarily tell you that you can't eat unhealthy or empty calories either. It really wants you to limit them, and sometimes you will hear the word eliminate, but there are. Slides on this while we're educating that, talk about it's never gonna tell you no. So if you're somewhere and your only option is an unhealthy food that doesn't fit into this eating plan, eat it. It, I mean, we don't want you eating those things every single day, but it's not going to be the end all. So just understand we're all human, we all make mistakes. So this eating plan is really flexible, which is really cool. So I just wanna go over a brief overview with you about what the Mediterranean Eating Plan is, and we will go into the seven steps. So med instead of Meds is a really cool. Program, but it's also a website that you can visit and everything that I'm getting off of there is public information. If you go to Med instead of meds.com then you can see pretty much all this information that I'm talking about with you today. So step one. Of the Mediterranean diet is called change, and I just said it, diet, sorry. The Mediterranean way of eating is change your protein. What this means is that on the Mediterranean way, we want to limit our red meat and aim to eliminate our highly processed meets. So instead of those red meats and highly processed meats, instead choosing fish and seafood and white meat and poultry and increasing the amount of plant protein that we're consuming according to the med program, changing your protein is arguably one of the great ways that we can improve our health. So it's really important that we're changing to more of those healthier proteins. So when I teach this curriculum, we give you. A protein continuum, which is basically this chart and it's like a scale. And on one side of the scale it says, eat more of these. And then on the other side of the scale it says, eat less of these. And so again, you'll see those plant proteins as that number one, eat more. And what we're talking about with plant proteins are things like beans and legumes. And then towards the other side of the eat less, it'll be those on the very far right, it will be the highly processed meats. And you'll see this throughout the program, especially with the plant protein, is that it's always gonna encourage you to eat more plants. It's a very plant forward type of eating. So step two is to swap your fats. So fat is not the enemy in this eating program. Actually, it's quite the opposite. They actually encourage you to eat fats. It talks a lot about how fat free, actually, what that means is they took out the fat, but to make it taste good, they just replaced the fat. With refined carbohydrates, which we'll talk about later, is not a good thing. Now, when they're talking about fat, though, they're very specific on what types of fats they want you to be consuming. And those are unsaturated fats. Not solid fats, but things like olive oil and canola oil, because those are not going to be clogging our arteries. Like things like, saturated animal products might be In the med diet, they want you to consume four tablespoons of fat a day. And that can be, I mean, it's not telling you to eat spoonfuls of olive oil. That can be in your cooking. That can be as a part of like a salad dressing. So just keep that in mind that if you're making your own salad dressing to use olive oil, maybe instead of. Something else that you might be using like mayonnaise, which would be, an animal byproduct. It wants you to replace saturated fats or solid fats with unsaturated fats. And the easiest way to do this is just by cooking with it and making your own salad dressings and things. Of that nature. Now, step three and four, I'm gonna do it together. This is eat more vegetables and eat more fruits. So we wanna aim to eat at least three servings, which would be cups of vegetables a day, and at least two servings or two cups of fruit a day. It's important that we're choosing a variety of colors and focus on eating more dark, leafy greens and berries. But don't limit yourself to just those. Specific fruits and vegetables, just incorporate them more often. One study found that consuming nine or more servings of fruits and vegetables a day resulted in a 60% reduction in cardiovascular disease, so it is. A very important thing that we're adding into our diet. Step five is snacking on nuts and seeds. So instead of snacking on like a refined carbohydrate like a chip, choosing a, nut or seed, instead, it can have a big impact on your health. Nuts and seeds are good sources of those healthy unsaturated fats. And they all have different benefits, but some of them have things like omega threes, you wanna choose at least three ounces or three small handfuls of nuts and seeds each week. Remember though that they are high in calories, so a serving is a fourth of a cup. It's not like a whole can or a whole container of nuts, a fourth of a cup. And avoid those overly processed, like the candied or heavily salted nuts or seeds too. It's hard for you just to snack on them. Throwing them into a salad is a good option to get more nuts and seeds or also like nuts or seed butters like almond butter is a good option as well. Step six is make your grains, whole grains, so swapping your white grains to whole grains. And an example of this would be like white bread to a whole wheat bread or white rice to a brown rice. Not only will the whole grain give you a lot more fiber, it'll also help you to stay full for longer periods of time. Refined grain has actually been associated with increased belly fat or body fat. But the opposite spectrum, eating at least three servings of whole grains a day has been associated with decreased abdominal fat. So very interesting. Swapping from that refined white grain to a whole grain can actually have the reverse effect on your body. Now, step seven, which is the last food related. Step is called swap your sweets. This, for me, is the hardest one because I have a big sweet tooth, but sugar is making us sick. It has been associated with heart disease, non-alcoholic, fatty liver, diabetes, obesity, tooth decay, metabolic syndrome, and gout. It also causes inflammation in our bodies, which has a. Ton of negative associations, and it's something we want to avoid if possible. So when we're talking about sugar, we wanna look at sugar in two categories. We wanna look at added sugar, and we wanna look at natural sugar. So when I look at a banana, a banana is naturally sweet. That is not the sugar I'm talking about. I'm talking about the sugar that's in like a candy bar because that would be added sugar. Anytime you get a packaged food, you will notice that it has. Total sugar, and then right underneath that it has added sugar. We want to aim to get no more than six to nine teaspoons of added sugar a day, and most of us on average are getting way more than that, especially in drinks. So be very careful about the type of drinks that you're choosing and the amount of sugar content that's in there. So those are the seven tips for changing your eating pattern to the Mediterranean plan. But there's also two other things that it encourages. One is physical activity encourages you to be physically active. The curriculum that we teach says 150 minutes every week of moderate intensity, physical activity, but for even greater benefits, you're looking at 300 minutes. A week of moderate intensity physical activity. Also, if you are trying to do even better than that, or really we should all be aiming for at least 75 minutes of vigorous activity. Physical activity has been proven to help your sleep, help improve your moods, help with disease prevention and disease management, stress management, and. Weight management and also current and future mobility. So to make sure our bodies are staying mobile and active, it's really important. The other thing it's associated with is pain management. You know, they say that a body that is in motion stays in motion, and that's a really important thing we want to remember. The last thing that the Mediterranean Diet really focuses on is mindfulness. So when we are eating, it really wants you to stop. And take time to sit down and eat your food without distraction. So sitting down at a table without the TV blaring where you can quietly focus on what you're doing to basically make eating into an entire awareness experience. And it helps you to not only enjoy your food more, but it also helps you to be. Present and in the moment, and if you're with family and friends, even better, enjoy your time together. Slow down. Don't rush through the eating process, but enjoy that food that you have. So if you have any more questions or want any more information on the Med Instead of Meds program, please give me a call. I just wanted to give you a quick jumpstart into this plan of eating because I think it's beneficial to so many people. And for free recipes and resources, please visit the Med instead of meds.com website. For more information and again, please reach out to me if you have any questions. I have enjoyed our time together today, and I look forward to talking with you next time on the Extension Connection Podcast.