The Mediterranean Diet

Episode: Understanding the Mediterranean Diet

Host: Dr. Rocco | Guest: Susan Chiappini, PhD

Episode Overview

In this episode, I'm joined again by my wonderful wife, Susan, who you'll remember from episode three. Susan has a PhD in physiology, real-world experience in nutritional science, and co-directs the farm kitchen at a local farm where she teaches cooking classes. Today we're talking about something close to both of our hearts — the Mediterranean diet. I come from a Southern Italian background, and Susan grew up in a Syrian American household, learning to cook in her grandmother's kitchen. Between the two of us, we've got a couple of corners of the Mediterranean covered, and I think that made for a great conversation.

The Mediterranean diet has been recommended by the World Health Organization, the American Heart Association, the American Diabetes Association, and the UK's National Health Service. UNESCO even named it a Cultural Heritage of Humanity back in 2010. So we dug into what it actually is, why it works, and how to bring more of it into your own kitchen — wherever you happen to live.

Olive Oil: Where It All Starts

Almost every dish in a Mediterranean kitchen starts with olive oil in the pan. Susan explained that olive oil replaces much of the animal fat found in a more modern diet, which means less saturated fat and fewer fats damaged by processing — and it's been shown to help lower LDL cholesterol.

We also got into how olive oil is actually made. Olives are pressed in a mill, and the liquid that separates out is the oil. The first pressing, done without heating the olive pulp, gives you extra virgin olive oil — the good stuff. Later pressings involve heat to extract more oil from the leftover pulp, but heat damages the fats, which is why extra virgin is the gold standard (and the priciest).

Susan's tips for buying good olive oil:

•        Price matters — pricier oils tend to be better oils

•        Look for dark glass bottles or tins, since light degrades the oil

•        Check the label for “first cold pressing” and “extra virgin”

•        A pressed-on date is a great sign (not to be confused with an expiration date)

•        A peppery bite in the back of your throat means good quality

•        Store it somewhere cool and dark once you're home

Fresh, Seasonal, Local Produce

The traditional Mediterranean diet leans heavily on fruits and vegetables that are in season and grown locally — picked for flavor, not for shipping. Cooking those vegetables in olive oil actually helps pull out fat-soluble nutrients like vitamin A, making them more digestible. People eating this way naturally end up with about twice the fiber of the average American diet, which feeds a diverse, healthy gut microbiome.

Whole Grains, Beans, and the Truth About Pasta

Beans are a fantastic source of protein and fiber, and Susan recommends buying dried beans rather than canned, soaking them overnight to neutralize the natural enzyme inhibitors, and cooking them slowly with broth and herbs.

And yes, we talked about pasta. Italians eat it, sometimes daily, but in modest portions, cooked al dente (which lowers its glycemic index), and always alongside vegetables, olive oil, and other foods that slow the release of sugar into the bloodstream. It's one course in a larger meal — not the whole meal.

Meat as a Supporting Player

In the Mediterranean, meat tends to flavor a dish rather than dominate it — think lamb mixed into cracked wheat, or a little beef stuffed into eggplant alongside rice and tomato sauce. Coastal regions eat more seafood, including canned tuna and anchovies. Cured meats like prosciutto and salami have their place too, but in small quantities, used as flavoring rather than the main event — not the gigantic Italian sub you'll find in the US.

Dessert, Dairy, and Wine

Dessert is usually just fruit, maybe with a few nuts, rather than cake or cookies. Dairy tends to be cultured — yogurt and aged cheeses — which preserves the nutrition in milk while adding beneficial bacteria. Wine is consumed with meals, in moderation, as part of the overall ritual of sitting down together, eating slowly, and enjoying the company.

How to Eat More Like This Yourself

Susan's advice: start at the grocery store. Shop the produce section for what's in season, hit a farmer's market if you can, and don't skip the aisle with dried beans and grains. From there, build meals that lead with vegetables, legumes, and whole grains, and use meat as a flavoring rather than the centerpiece. Leftovers make great lunches, and a roasted Sunday chicken can stretch into tacos, salads, or soup later in the week.

Dr. Rocco's Recs 📚

Susan recommends The New Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden. My pick is The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan — the bible of Italian cooking, with step-by-step instructions clear enough for even a beginner to follow.

One More Thing

Did you know garlic is a 9,000-year-old plant? Garlic cloves were even found in King Tut's tomb. If you're worried about garlic breath, try sprinkling some parsley on your dish — it's the traditional remedy.

Until next time — life is not a dress rehearsal.

Subscribe to the Life and How to Live It Podcast and leave us a review. See the show notes for more information.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Do you sometimes feel like life is passing you by? How would you like to get more out of life? We explore all things life on this podcast. Welcome to Life and How to Live It podcast with Dr. Rocco.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Dream, create, connect.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Welcome to another episode of the Life and How to Live It podcast with me, Dr. Rocco. In today's episode, we will be discussing the Mediterranean diet. We've all heard about the Mediterranean diet, including that it has been recommended by all sorts of health organizations. In fact, the Mediterranean Diet has been recommended by the World Health Organization, by the American Heart Association, the American Diabetes Association, and the United Kingdom National Health Service as a healthy diet plan. It has even been named a cultural heritage of humanity by UNESCO in 2010. So even the United Nations is saying this is a good diet. But what really is the Mediterranean diet? Why is it good for us? And how can we incorporate the Mediterranean diet into our own lives? To help me answer those questions, I am joined again today by my wonderful wife, Susan. Now, Susan, as you may recall from episode three, is not only my wife, but she has a PhD in physiology and experience in nutritional science. She co-directs the farm kitchen at a local farm and teaches cooking classes. Susan, welcome back to the show.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

Hi, Rocco. Thanks for having me again.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

So, Susan, today we're talking about something that's very near and dear and familiar to us, the Mediterranean diet. So I come from an southern Italian background, and you know, that's right in the heart of that Mediterranean diet. And you come from a Syrian background. Remind listeners about your particular background.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

So I grew up on my mother's side in a Syrian American household. We lived very close to my grandmother, who was um immigrated to the United States in the late 1920s, and I spent a lot of time in her house with her and in her kitchen. And because I always had an interest in cooking and food, I think I just paid a lot of attention to what was going on in that kitchen. And so I have, as you stated in the introduction, some academic experience in nutrition and human physiology. And then I have practical experience in terms of cooking and knowledge of the um particular cooking of that part of the Middle East.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Yeah, and so between us, uh, we have a couple of parts of the Mediterranean covered. You know, other areas where, you know, when we talk about the Mediterranean diet or places like Greece, the island of Crete, Southern France, Southern Spain, uh, North Africa, there are all those countries around the Mediterranean Sea, and they do have similarities. They also have some differences among them. And I think it's great that we, you know, we at least cover two different parts in our experience. So, what actually is the Mediterranean diet? You know, when I when I think about you know the way my family cooked, um the first thing I think of is olive oil. Any dish that was made, the first thing in the pan would be olive oil, whether it was um, you know, a pasta sauce or sauteing a vegetable, making lentils or other kinds of beans. Uh, there was always olive oil that went in first. So, Susan, what is so good about olive oil?

SPEAKER_02 4:28

So, olive oil in a traditional Mediterranean diet will first of all replace much of the animal fat that might be present in other diets if you're comparing it to a more modern day diet. So you're getting um, and because of that, you're getting less saturated fat, less fats, fewer fats that have been harmed by processing, um, because fats are very susceptible to that. And olive oil has been shown to have um some lipid lowering effects on the on the body, particularly in terms of your LDL cholesterol or your low density um lipoproteins.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

Yeah, yeah. So I think those are good points. You know, you you're just by eating this way, this Mediterranean diet way, you decrease your saturated fats and you switch out plant-based fats like olive oil for animal-based fats that can have health benefits. I think olive oil is is something that uh people are a little confused about, you know, like how do you know what's a good olive oil? You know, before we get into that, can you describe a little bit about how olive oil is made and what does it mean when you say extra virgin and that kind of thing?

SPEAKER_02 6:05

So if you think of olives, those are the fruits of an they're sort of a stone fruit. I've looked it up and I haven't really found a good answer to exactly where an olive falls in terms of categorization of fruit. But to me, it looks like a small stone fruit. You have that pit on the inside. And during processing, um, olives are harvested and then pressed in a mill, very much like um they're ground up, like we know in the United States from those old grain mills with those big stones. And then that that pulp from crushing that fruit is then um filtered to get the sediment out. And in that liquid portion or liquid phase of the the that product is where you'll find the oil. So those are that's a fruit that's just high in oil. And as humans, we've taken advantage of that, process that fruit, and um the oil that raises to the top is what is separated off and consumed as oil.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

And as extra virgin olive oil.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

That would be, and when you hear cold pressed, I don't believe that means like a refrigerated room. It probably means something closer to room temperature. And as you know, with the at the time of pressing, it's the end of the growing season, so it is a little cooler. These are not the you know, height of summer days in um in the Mediterranean, like August or something. This is farther into the fall, so the temperatures will be a little bit cooler, but it's a room temperature um pressing, and it's that first cold pressing, so that first pressing without the olive pulp being heated at all.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:19

So and then there would be successive pressings because now you have a lot of almost waste product, and how to extract more oil from that waste product would be to heat that, and because oils and lipids are very um sensitive to heat in terms of it makes them more liquidy. Um now you can pull more of the oil off of the the crushed olives.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Yeah, so so each each successive pressing is a different like phase of olive oil.

SPEAKER_02 8:57

That first one phase of olive oil process the processing.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Yeah, and so you were going to say something?

SPEAKER_02 9:05

I was going to say that once that's heated, once that um olive pulp is heated, then that's where you can start to damage fats. Fats are very heat sensitive, and you start to damage some fats, and you have a lower quality of oil.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Yeah, and so and so that's why when people talk about olive oil being so good for you, they're usually talking about that first pressing, the extravagant. Unfortunately, that tends to be the most expensive of the olive oils is the extra virginity.

SPEAKER_02 9:42

It is pricey, yes.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Yeah. So any recommendations, but you know, we should can't talk the whole episode about olive oil, but a quick any recommendations about how to find a good olive oil that doesn't break the bank?

SPEAKER_02 9:56

I find that price does matter. So if the overall the pricier oils will be your better oils, the cheaper oils will will not be as good. Um, what you want to look for is that the oil is comes to you stored in um uh either a dark glass bottle or a or a can because it's light sensitive, meaning that the light through a clear glass bottle will degrade the olive oil. So looking for a container that is not um sensitive to light, uh looking for something that's labeled first cold pressing, extra virgin, and hopefully has a pressed on date on the bottle.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Okay, pressed on date. Okay, very quickly to sum up.

SPEAKER_02 10:57

And then a little, can I I'd like to just quickly talk about flavor because when you taste that oil, you'll get a bit of a peppery taste in the back of your throat. That's another sign that you have a good quality oil.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

Okay. So so when you're buying olive oil, try to get extra virgin uh in a dark or tin kind of can uh with a date. Like the date would be lovely if you could find it in your store.

SPEAKER_02 11:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

And that's not the expiration date, that's the pressed on date.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

And then when you're home, just to you know put that that out there as well, um once you come home, keep that in the dark. Keep it in a cooler spot in your house. If you're buying in large uh large quantity, you might want to store it in your basement or you know, uh or a cupboard pantry that um doesn't get as warm.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

Okay. All right. So we've we've got to move on now to other components of this diet because there's a lot of components. So I would say the next major component is uh fresh fruits and vegetables. And and they they do eat a lot of them uh in the Mediterranean. They uh incorporate them into so many of their dishes, and I think one of the most important things is that what they have, what they're uh consuming, are in-season fruits and vegetables. So they're you know, and and we're talking about the traditional diet of this area, you know. You in these modern times, these folks are able to import stuff from all over the place. But traditionally, even in my family, you know, that live in Italy, um, they are still eating seasonally, they're trying to like eat what's what like so. If it's like asparagus season, you know, you're just eating asparagus like every day, you know, and then once asparagus are out of season, you don't see them again for a year. Right. Yeah. So I think uh besides the fact that fruits and vegetables are great for you, that the one part of what makes it sp uh healthy is that they're uh seasonal and local. Can you say anything about that?

SPEAKER_02 13:22

Yeah, they're you're they're they're eating in a more seasonal way, um, and then they're cooking those very fresh vegetables that have been grown for flavor and palatability, not necessarily grown for shipping. So you're getting something that's when we say something is local, that also implies that it is a product that is um it's asparagus that has been freshly picked. So, and then once that vegetable is cooked in olive oil, oil will help to pull out some of the nutrients and make it more digestible. Um, many nutrients, like some of the um vitamin A, is fat soluble. So, meaning when we can take the example of asparagus or broccoli, you're gonna pull some of the nutrients out of the vegetable into the oil, and then you're gonna consume it in a way that is better for you, more dig more digestible, and makes it more accessible to your to your system.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

So that's very interesting. I mean, now you're you're already starting to talk about how, you know, in this very early phase of the discussion, we're already hitting on the point that it's not just a vegetable in isolation, it's sort of how everything is is prepared and put together. Yeah. Yeah. So the vet you know, fruits and vegetables, as we know, are really high in um vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, um, and and also fiber, you know, and I think that's something that we're you know, we don't think about or talk about enough is is the importance of fiber. If you eat a Mediterranean style diet, uh you end up just naturally having about twice the amount of fiber in your diet than the the average American diet.

SPEAKER_02 15:36

Because many of those, um a lot of your food is replaced by a fiber-rich food. If you're not eating a packaged food, you you've got to be eating something. So you're eating what's available, which are fruit and vegetables, and um we haven't talked about the beans, legumes, but all of that is fiber-rich, both in terms of its um soluble and insoluble fiber, which we hear a lot about.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

Yeah, and and fiber uh is um, you know, also has some effect on the gut microbiome. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_02 16:19

Yes. So some of your um the bacteria that are naturally living in your gut um will consume that fiber and create their own products, which affect your own metabolism and physiology in um a beneficial way. So you want to feed those bat gut bacteria. You also want to feed your gut bacteria in a way that keeps that population of bacteria diverse and complex. So you're not overfeeding, say, we'll go to an extreme. You won't, you're not overfeeding with sugar, which will select out certain bacteria to an overgrowth of certain bacteria. And that's where your system can really start to get um out of whack and not as healthy. So you want to feed those bacteria with a number of different sorts of um fiber and keep that population of bacteria diverse.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Yeah, and that's really interesting. The whole conversation about the gut microbiome is relatively new. It's like within the last, say, 10 to 15 years, people have been talking more about how important that is to our overall health, not just our gut health. So eating in this way not only uh encourages the health uh of the gut molecular biome, but encourages the diversity, which is also important.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

So that's and you know, on a maybe a lighter, less sciencey side, is it's just good. It's good filling food. And well, that is the advantage. I don't want to like overlook that.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

That no, that is one of the advantages of this diet. It's it's it's good. People love it, people have been eating it for thousands of years, and it's just you know, not only is it healthy, but it tastes good. Um that's a very good point, Susan.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

Yeah, and um, you know, people were cooking the food accessible to them before we had all of these big grocery stores and everything. You're cooking what was available and in the most palatable way, and that's how these um you know food traditions get started.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

Yes. Let's let's move on to um another real staple of this this diet is whole grains. Yeah, so so there's a lot of ways that people are um bring whole grains into this diet. So talk a little bit about that, please.

SPEAKER_02 19:10

Um well I feel I think that um in addition to the so now we're moving from um the from oil from fats in the form of olive oil or other healthy fats to fruit and vegetables, now on to the carb carbohydrates. And those would be you would would be consumed in the form of um grains and beans. Beans mean meaning the dried beans, not green beans. Those are we'll put those in with the vegetables. Um and the so did you want to talk about the different types of grains or preparation?

SPEAKER_00 19:59

Yeah, just real, you know, real quickly, you know, great, there's different, you know, along all along this Mediterranean world, you know, it's some people eat rice, some people eat, you know, it's talk a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

So I think that um, you know, the let's talk about some some beans. And um beans are a fabulous uh source of protein, fiber, both soluble and insoluble. They're filling, they're delicious, and can be cooked along with your uh your vegetables. So it the preparation of those beans is important. Um I encourage people to buy um dried beans, the packaged dry beans, rather than canned, because you can prepare them yourself in the most healthy way possible, which is to soak them overnight or for a 12-hour period, and then um boil them in with broth, with water, um, with a little salt flavoring if you want, some herbs, some garlic, and um allow those to cook slowly, and that tends to be less um bothersome to people's guts.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

Yeah. Okay. And it's it's not just less bothersome, but don't you also get more of the health benefit from the legume if you soak it?

SPEAKER_02 21:35

You do. What you do in essence is sprout it. These are seeds. Yeah, a bean is a seed. It's meant to make another plant. Um, so the dried beans, uh the reason they don't sprout in the jar is because there are enzyme inhibitors that prevent that in from happening in the those beans. That's inherent in any seed. Once you soak a seed, Plant a seed, right? I have some marigolds going in some pots right now. And when they were dry, they were doing nothing. Now that they're in water and dirt, they're starting to sprout. That's because the enzyme inhibitors have been uh neutralized, neutralized, or just like um uninhibit, disinhibited, and that allows the bean to sprout. Now, those enzyme inhibitors, if they're still present in a large high, high concentration, they will also act on your gut and inhibit some of the enzymes in your gut. So it's important to sort of clear that from the beans, from the dried beans.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

That's a that's a really good point. And um, so beans, so beans, legumes, you know, you said something interesting about that. That's a seed, it's meant to create a whole plant. And and as such, it is packed with nutritional value because that's the thing that is making the plant.

SPEAKER_02 23:08

Exactly. So, you know, you think you know, we'll exaggerate it and think about the um analogy of the an acorn and an oak tree. That acorn, we know how big they are, it's like the size of a big marble. That has all the nutrition necessary to start that plant. And of course, once the sunlight hits it and takes over, then you have a whole nother, you know, another set of this miracle happening. But it's the same thing with um a kidney bean. Yeah. You know, you soak it, the kidney bean has everything in it necessary to form a new plant, which would be fats, proteins, carbohydrates, and um so we as humans have taken those those seeds to prepare them for ourselves and get that same nutrition from them.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

Yeah. Okay, so I, you know, we talked about grains a little bit, um, and I and in this category would be pasta, you know, even though it's not a pure grain, but it comes from a grain. And I want to say a few words about pasta because when people think of Italian food, often pasta is the first thing they think about. And I think we have been told that pasta is not really good for us, or we shouldn't eat too much of it. And so, how is it that this thing, this pasta, is such an integral part of one of the healthiest diets in the world? And I I want to say a couple of words about how Italians, especially Italians in Italy, eat pasta. Pasta is is eaten by some Italians at least once a day, some sometimes even more than once a day, but usually once a day, maybe not every single day. It is eaten in relatively small quantities compared to the way it's eaten here in the United States. Uh, it's eaten al dente, right? So al dente means that it's um it's got a little bit of a bite to it when you chew it, it's not mushy. Um, and and because of that, it's like it decreases its glycemic index. So I'll explain glycemic index just very briefly. A food that has a high glycemic index will release its sugars very rapidly and therefore cause your blood sugar to go up more quickly. A food that has a low glycemic index will release more slowly, so your sugar won't jump as much.

SPEAKER_02 26:00

So you have a more stable blood sugar.

SPEAKER_00 26:02

Exactly. More stable rather than spiking your blood sugar. And so if you if you cook your your pasta al dente, it's a little bit of a lower glycemic index. The other things that are really important are that you know you're you're eating this pasta in at the same time that you're eating a lot of other things, and that decreases the glycemic index of the of the pasta or the release of the sugars. So you're eating it, you know, with olive oil, with tomato, you know, uh often it's cooked with vegetables in the actual pasta dish. Uh, meats are involved, seafood is involved, you know. So everything, the way, and then and then pasta is one course in an Italian meal. And so by doing by eating this way, you can have pasta every day, and it's still healthy for you. Right.

SPEAKER_02 27:02

And and you know, you touched on pasta being mixed with other uh with vegetables, right? Or even sometimes beans. But the the pasta would be cooked with olive oil, some let's say a little asparagus, and maybe a little tiny bit of um salami or a dry sausage for flavor, and all of that combination of fiber from the vegetable, the fat from the oil, and the um the undercooking of the the pasta will slow the release of um of the of it'll it'll slow your body's response to the to breaking down the carbohydrate into sugar. Yeah. Breaking down that pasta into sugar.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

Yeah. And the other thing I want to say about pasta is that um Italian pastas, like the good quality ones, are made of high quality wheat. Semolina, Durham wheat, this kind of thing. Uh, so when you do buy your pasta, you know, look for high-quality Italian brands.

SPEAKER_02 28:17

Um there's so many good ones out there now. I can't remember the names of the brands, but um the pasta aisle in a decent grocery store will have have a lot of choices. And if you're having a homemade pasta, that's with egg. That's made with flour and eggs. And so you're getting a little bit of protein there. You're getting um again, uh a slowing of breaking down the the starch into into simple sugars. And you know, that also makes me think, Rago, about the time of day. So you're having this larger meal at what we might consider a late lunch time, so 1:30 maybe in the afternoon, two o'clock. And now you're giving your body a lot of time to digest that food, process that food, and having a little bit of a lighter meal later in the day.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

Yeah, that's a good point.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

I think that that's probably part of um why uh the having that that start that starch load is your your body can take care of it and burn and burn some of it off. Because you need you need some of that sugar in your, you know, sugar gets a bad rap, but you need your you need your blood sugar. Think about how people feel when their blood sugar is low. You need to have you know stable blood sugar to get through your day.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Yeah, absolutely. And that's why it makes more sense to eat more of your carbs earlier in the day, uh, which is how they temp they tend to do it. So we've talked about you know, olive oil, fruits and vegetables, legumes, grains. Uh, I just want to mention, you know, they also eat uh fair amount of nuts uh and other seeds. But what about meat? So meat is is interesting. So being a traditional diet of the Mediterranean, they tend to eat a lot of seafood. If you're in a coastal region, well, you know, you're it's the Mediterranean diet. So we're talking about the folks who are living relatively close to the coast, but there there is a higher intake of seafood um like say per week than in a typical American diet, right? And so there would be things like uh any kind of seafood, you know, it would be uh fish, but all kinds of shellfish, different kind, you know, and then uh there's a very wide use of canned tuna, um, as well as anchovies, you know, as the salted and preserved fish, too.

SPEAKER_02 31:11

Yeah, yeah. And um often, you know, I talked about growing up in a Middle Eastern household, and the meat is mixed with grain. If you're we'll sort of like diverge from the the seafood, if you're eating lamb or beef, it would be mixed with um cracked wheat, a dish made almost like a pilaf with cracked wheat, where the meat is flavoring that grain in a really delicious way. Um, or you're using meat mixed with rice in a stuffing, much like we would make stuffed peppers or stuffed cabbage. You would also be stuffing eggplant or zucchini or um grape leaves. And in that package, if you really think about it, you're getting, let's say, stuffed eggplant, you're getting the vegetable, you're getting your grain in the form of rice, you're getting a little bit of meat in the form of lamb or beef, and then that whole dish is now cooked in tomato sauce. And it's you've now spread your your meat out over, you know, out over that whole that whole dish preparation.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

Yeah, that's it, that's an excellent point. You know, it's like they they don't in the Mediterranean, they don't tend to just eat a big hunk of meat, you know, like they'll do it sometimes, especially for a festival or something like that. But on a daily basis, the meat is just sort of like a player in the orchestra. It's not like the soloist, you know. And so I think that you know, that's something that we can think about as we try to adopt this way of eating a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 33:04

And I'm realizing that as we're talking, we keep getting back to this theme of eating your food in combination, not in isolation, mixing you know, your meat with your grains, veg and vegetables, or cooking your your broccoli or other, you know, your zucchini in oil. And um it's it's rare that it's just like one thing cooked on its own. Yeah. You know, you're forming the a complete meal with all of the dietary components of the fats, the carbohydrates, and and the proteins.

SPEAKER_00 33:46

Yeah, yeah. And one thing that we haven't mentioned is garlic, you know. Um, that was also pretty much.

SPEAKER_02 33:53

So garlic's common in all of those cultures.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

Yeah, really ubiquitous. It's it's in so many dishes, and um, you know, garlic has a lot of health benefits too. So, you know, uh just going back to the meats a little bit, you know, one of the things that's interesting in some in these places is these uh preserved meats, like dried sausages, maybe prosciutto or like uh serrano ham, iberico ham. You know, what are are those things good for you? Because I have always heard they're not, but why are they part of this healthy diet?

SPEAKER_02 34:33

Well, I think they're looked at as a processed food, for one thing. But when you think about why, why are they why do we find them in the form of you know sausage, ham, cured meats? It's because meat is so highly perishable. We're talking about, you know, when did refrigeration really come in heavy? 50s, I think. Um, but you know, before that, you couldn't really keep meat for very long. And um, so it had to be salted and dried in order to be um, you know, kept as a staple, a pantry staple in your house. And the way of doing that is there, there are a few different ways, but the ones that come to mind for me are heavily salting and pressing, like you would with a ham. So increasing the amount of salt in the meat and decreasing the amount of water, and that inhibits the growth of bacteria. Another way of doing it with a salami is you grind up that meat and allow the lactic acid-producing bacteria to work on the meat, produce acid, which is why pepperoni and salami, you'll you'll have a little bit of that tart taste in there. And so that is a fermented food product.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

Right. And so so those are and and the the thing I would also say is they're eaten in really small quantities. Small quantities.

SPEAKER_02 36:04

But you know, really, how much salami could you eat? I mean, it would just become repulsive, you know, to eat like I don't know, half a pound of salami. It's eaten in small quantities. And sometimes my experience is that when we go to Italy, it's cooked a little bit of those hard salamis. You take a little bit, maybe just off of one of those um those pieces. You would take maybe an inch, a half inch, something like that, cut it up, saute that in the oil, and add use that to flavor your food. And it's delicious, it is just delicious.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

Yeah, it is. I can vouch for that. It's absolutely delicious. So, so there is a role for some of these, you know, cured meats in your diet, you know, just but eat it the way they do, you know. Yes, don't don't eat like these guy gargantuan things they call Italian subs and think that you're eating the Mediterranean diet. That is not the Mediterranean diet. In fact, in Italy, they will only ever put one type of meat on your sandwich. You can have prosciutto.

SPEAKER_02 37:16

I'm not sure why that is.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

Well, you because they're very pure about taste. They they don't see like you're not tasting the prosciutto if you put prosciutto and then you know, salami and capacola, or you know, whatever, if you mix all that together. So basically, what I'm I really want to say is you know, these things aren't necessarily bad for you if you get a good quality item, but don't eat a lot of it. Exactly. Use it as a flavoring or an addition to your meal.

SPEAKER_02 37:47

It's the same thing that we just um talked about with the pasta, is this is not an enormous quantity of this food. It's uh you know, a small part of your overall meal.

SPEAKER_00 38:02

Yeah, yeah. And so um one thing that we haven't touched on yet is uh that I have mentioned in a prior podcast, is you know, they don't tend to eat dessert the way we eat dessert. You know, these cultures have incredible sweets, you know, if you think about some of the different sweets that are out there, but they don't tend to eat them on a daily basis, or at least they did not traditionally. Um, you know, they would eat fruit after their meal for that little sweetness that they wanted. There's always, and and in in uh at least in the Italian world, you'd also have like a little bowl of nuts. So you'd have some walnuts, almonds, that kind of thing, and then like whatever's fruits in season. You might have peaches, you might have berries, you might whatever. That's your dessert. And so what you're eating instead of a piece of cake or some you know cookies or something like that is actually healthy.

SPEAKER_02 39:07

Right. It's healthy and it's full of fiber. Yeah, and it adds to your your feeling of satiety, and um yeah, it's it gives like it's a palate cleanser. So you think of having an orange after dinner. It's tart, it's juicy, you get that chewy, you know, fiber part of it in your mouth, and um it's a it's a beautiful end to the meal. And dried fruits. I remember my mother talking about having I forget the name of it, but having dried apricots after dinner, very high in fiber.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:43

Middle eastern sweets tend to be like wow, sweet, soaked in syrup, but that's more for a holiday, a wedding, um, you know, some kind of celebration. It would not be just after after dinner.

SPEAKER_00 39:58

Right, right. So one thing we haven't mentioned, which is very near and dear to you, are dairy products, right?

SPEAKER_02 40:05

So I thought we were gonna, you were gonna bring up fermented foods, but that that sort of um goes hand in hand. Um so dairy products in the Mediterranean diet tend to be cultured, cultured dairy, um, because again, like meat, dairy product milk is very perishable, very, very nutritious, but very perishable. And how to preserve that nutrition from the milk is by culturing it. And in when you culture the milk, then let's talk about something very simple like yogurt. You culture um warm milk, allow the lactic acid bacteria to produce um acid, and that in essence almost like sort of pickles the milk. You get the acid high enough in there, and some of the sugar has been consumed, and the proteins now you have it the this curd that is um preserved from the growth of other bacteria, harmful bacteria. And that's the same in harder cheeses. It's just with a hard cheese, the milk has been cultured, but a lot of the water has been pulled out. You pull out the water, you add salt, and that really inhibits the growth of molden bacteria, which is why you see the harder cheeses in hotter climates.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 41:44

So the hard cheese the because of the um it it keeps them fresh even in the face of that kind of heat.

SPEAKER_00 41:54

Yeah. And um so a lot of people think cheese is not good for you. Once again, here it is, you know, it's a it's a really important part of this diet, or not cheese, but cheese and and other dairy products.

SPEAKER_02 42:10

Right. And with the cheese with a well-made cheese, you're getting again um some beneficial bacteria, you're getting protein, you're getting the carbohydrates have been digest partially digested for you. And since we touched on beneficial bacteria, if you're getting a little bit with your salami, you're getting a little bit with your cheese, you're getting a little bit with your um red wine vinegar, if that's made naturally made. And you're using those in in small quantities over the course of a day. And so you're um contributing to your your gut flora um from all of these different sources.

SPEAKER_00 42:54

Yeah. Yeah. So you mentioned red wine vinegar. What about wine itself? That's a big part of a lot of these cultures.

SPEAKER_02 43:04

Big part of the cult of the cultures, and um it's consumed mainly with meals. And you know, I wonder if it aids in digestion. It definitely has a a cleansing effect on the palate between between bites. Um and it's fun, it makes your meal fun. I don't want to get so sciencey in this that it doesn't feel like like that it takes away from the the joy of the eating, the table, the cooking. Because that that's a big and that having a meal in a communal way um is important too. Yeah, that's a very important being, sitting down, talking, you know, enjoying this food together.

SPEAKER_00 43:56

Yeah, an important point, you know, when when we Talk about this diet, you know, it's easy to say, okay, well, how many, you know, vitamins, minerals, fiber, etc. But this diet is part of a culture, and the culture has um built into it this communal way of eating. You sit down, you eat, you enjoy, you have a glass of wine. Not everybody drinks, but most people do, at least I know in Italy and Spain, um, Greece, you know, you you do this, it's part of a way to pause, connect, enjoy your food, have a conversation, and then often it's followed by going out and taking a walk. Um, you know, maybe it's followed by taking a siesta, depending on you know where you are, what time of year. Um, it is not in isolation, just as each food item is not in isolation, the diet itself is not in isolation.

SPEAKER_02 44:59

Exactly. And we you and I have talked about this sort of food in isolation when um when you know information comes out that a particular food or component of food is good for you. Um there's a a desire sometimes to isolate that thing and eat it in enormous quantities.

SPEAKER_00 45:29

Um or turn it into a pill.

SPEAKER_02 45:32

Or turn well then that's you know, there's money to be made off of it. Yeah. Because that, you know, the the news clip is often followed very quickly by a product that you can buy. But I always like bristle a little bit when it's, you know, yay, parsley is good for you. It has vitamins and minerals, but I don't want to eat a half a cup of parsley. I want to have it, you know, have your herbs chopped and you know sprinkled on your food. Um, again, having these nutrients in combination with others.

SPEAKER_00 46:13

Yeah, you just mentioned herbs. Uh that's something that brings a lot of pleasure to your food besides health. Oh, yeah. Right? And the kinds of herbs that they use in the Mediterranean.

SPEAKER_02 46:26

You mentioned parsley, parsley, rosemary, thyme, oregano, mint. Oh yeah, mint. Those are the ones I can think of. And then citrus as a you know, lemon squeezed on top of your food as a dressing. Yeah. Instead of sometimes as the acid instead of um vinegar.

SPEAKER_00 46:48

Yeah, so so lemon, you know, and so e any all of these, you know, not to get too science-y again, but you know, all of those things have all these, you know, antioxidants. Some of them have anti-um cancer components to them, like um the lemon you mentioned has these chemicals called monoterpenes that may have some anti-cancer benefits. Uh, hot peppers have capsaicin, tomatoes have lycopene, you know. So these are, you know, it's just it's like these folks just develop this diet, as you said earlier, based on what was there.

SPEAKER_02 47:28

Well, was there the packaged food was not there?

SPEAKER_00 47:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:31

And so that was not an option. And if you start or if you if you cook this way in your household, that also means in addition to getting all the good food, you're not eating the bad food.

SPEAKER_00 47:46

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:49

So I would say almost if you were having packaged food for breakfast and the Mediterranean diet for lunch, you're you're almost negating the effect.

SPEAKER_00 48:02

Well, let's talk about that because I you know, I think that we've talked a lot about what is what are the components of this diet and why they're good for us. How can we make our diet more Mediterranean?

SPEAKER_02 48:15

I always I think that food starts at the grocery store. And look for when you first walk in, you generally walk into close pretty close to the um fruit and vegetables. And you will it'll become apparent very quickly what's in season, because that's the the bulk of what's there and sort of up front and center. Pay attention to that and um get you know the the fruit and vegetables that are in season in your area. If you have the opportunity of shopping at a farmer's market, then certainly do that. Support them, and um you'll find you know some of the best uh fruit and vegetables grown in your area right there. Um and then shop, it's true, shop the periphery of the grocery store. That's where you're um you'll find less of your packaged food. And then take a trip down after saying that, also take a trip down your the aisle with all of the dried beans and grains and find something that you think that you and your family would like. Maybe it's white beans, maybe it's lentils, and um try you know cooking some one of those.

SPEAKER_00 49:36

Okay. So so you start with the store, then you and then as far and then as far as preparation, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:48

Um I would say, you know, look at a dish that you can prepare that is um high in fiber and um vegetables and lower in meat. So maybe try a bean soup with a little bit of ham in it and a lot of white beans and some chopped um kale or other green that you enjoy.

SPEAKER_00 50:14

Yeah. So just a teaser for Dr. Rocco's Rex, uh, Susan and I have a couple of cookbooks that we will be recommending that can help you to come up with how to make your diet more Mediterranean. Um, you know, one thing that you mentioned earlier um was the way people eat like, you know, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So it's like maybe a lighter breakfast, heavier lunch, bigger, I mean, sorry, uh medium-sized to dinner. I don't know if that works for everybody, you know, if you go to work, you know, um, but you know, let's I don't think it does.

SPEAKER_02 50:57

I it doesn't work with our work schedules.

SPEAKER_00 51:00

Well, let's give people an example of a day in the life of the Mediterranean diet. So, what would a good breakfast be?

SPEAKER_02 51:07

A good breakfast, I mean, it depends where you are in the Mediterranean, I think, but um, you know, some nice maybe some some eggs. I know in a Middle Eastern household, you would have eggs with a little cheese and olives. They do tend to have a heavier breakfast. Um when we're in Italy, it tends to be very light breakfast, some kind of more of a little like bread or um I don't know, a starchy breakfast with a little coffee and milk in the coffee.

SPEAKER_00 51:43

Yeah, yeah. But we're not talking about necessarily being in Italy or or Syria or Lebanon. We're talking about being in, say, you know, Ohio, right? So if you're living in Ohio, you know, how can you have a bread a break, uh breakfast, lunch, and dinner that would be a good thing.

SPEAKER_02 52:02

A fabulous breakfast, a hard hard-boiled egg and a piece of fruit, or um some yogurt with fruit and a little, you know, muesli, granola, something like that. So delicious.

SPEAKER_00 52:16

Little bit of honey.

SPEAKER_02 52:17

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 52:18

Yeah. How about lunch?

SPEAKER_02 52:20

And lunch, I think that leftovers from the night before are the best lunch because you're already cleaning up from dinner, pack the dinner, whatever's left from the dinner, pack it in a way that is portable for your workday. Um, and that gives you, you know, a delicious homemade lunch. And then for dinner, um, we talked about in the uh the episode I was on, I think it was episode three where we talked about home cooking. That's where hopefully you have some, maybe you roasted a chicken on Sunday when you were home and having more time. And then that can be part of your dinner on Tuesday in the form of tacos or um chicken salad or a soup or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 53:13

Yeah. Yeah. And and so I think what we've said, you know, repeatedly in this episode is that you have a variety of foods that you would incorporate into your meal, you know. So if you want to make your meals more Mediterranean, you would, you know, make sure that you kind of lead lead with the vegetable, you know, lead with that, lead with the legumes, lead with the whole grains, and use the meats, whether it be seafood, poultry, you know, red meat, as more of a flavoring for the or or just a component of the meal rather than the whole meal.

SPEAKER_02 53:54

Exactly. And you know, Rocca, one of I think our family favorite um summertime lunch or dinner is uh you know, a salad spread out on a platter with tuna, some eggs, some olives, a little good bread, a little cheese, you know, dressed with a nice amount of salt and lemon. It's just like so delicious. Yeah, yeah. And it has all those pieces there. And it's even some chopped chopped up leftover vegetables.

SPEAKER_00 54:27

Yes. Chopped up green beans or asparagus is really great in that kind of a salad. So it's not hard to make your diet more Mediterranean, you know. You just get yourself some, you know, some good olive oil. Um, you know, eat eat these different kinds of foods and enjoy them with people that you care about, and you're you're more than halfway there.

SPEAKER_02 54:56

Exactly. And there's so many, you know, we haven't really talked about other cultures, other traditional foods, but everybody, each region of the world has its traditional diet, and those traditional diets tend to be the most nutritious um with the best quality ingredients.

SPEAKER_00 55:16

Yeah, that's a very important point.

SPEAKER_02 55:19

You know, we're talking traditional diet diet in the United States in the past was very, very good. And when you look at pictures from let's say the 1920s, 1930s, people were nice and slim, they were eating good homemade food. Um, a lot of it just because packaged and processed food was not available.

SPEAKER_00 55:45

Yeah. So I just I want to reiterate that, you know, it's it's not that we're saying only the Mediterranean diet is healthy, but we wanted to highlight it in this episode because we've heard so much about it, we know it so well, and it has been um touted by all these governmental health organizations as a diet that people should eat. But by all means, I mean, my goodness, the Japanese diet, the diet of Okinawa, the diet of you know, northern Europe, as you said, the American diet before everything became processed. Those are all healthy diets. But we're talking about the Mediterranean diet today. And Susan, thank you so much for this conversation about the Mediterranean diet. We'll have some some more um ideas in the show notes. So take a look at that. And that's it for this discussion. Stay tuned for Dr. Rocco's Rex. Now it's time for Dr. Rocco's Rex. Dr. Rocco's Rex. Now it's time for Dr. Rocco's Rex. Well, for Dr. Rocco's Rex this week, I am joined by Susan, my wife, to help uh discuss two recommendations. Um, Susan, why don't you go first?

SPEAKER_02 57:11

Uh a book that I really love, and a book author I love, is um Claudia Roden, and she wrote the new book of Middle Eastern Food as well as a few other books. So I would check, check out that cookbook author, and particularly this Middle Eastern food cookbook. I think it's I think it's just fabulous.

SPEAKER_00 57:35

How do you spell the last name, please?

SPEAKER_02 57:37

Um, it is R-O-D-E-N.

SPEAKER_00 57:40

Okay, Claudia Rodin. And my recommendation is The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan, H-A-Z-A-N. I think this is truly like the Bible of Italian cooking. Um, it's not all Mediterranean diet cooking because she tends to have a lot from northern Italy. Um, but uh they're the cookbook's amazing, it's well written. Uh, if you're not a very good at cooking, this is a great cookbook because um her husband helped her write this book, and he um between the two of them, they their instructions are incredible, step by step by step. You if you just follow the instructions, you will come up with an amazing dish.

SPEAKER_02 58:32

I agree. I think these are these are sort of two staple cookbooks of our kitchen.

SPEAKER_00 58:37

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 58:40

Constant rotation here.

SPEAKER_00 58:41

All right, well, those are our recommendations for today. Garlic has been known for many, many years to have many health benefits, but people often fear the um bad breath effects of garlic. Uh so a traditional way to manage the bad breath associated with garlic has been using parsley. So think about that. Next time you have a dish that's uh high in garlic, just sprinkle a little parsley on top. Well, that's it for today's show. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed your time with me today. Until next time, so long, that's all for today's show. Thanks for listening to the Life and How to Live It podcast with Dr. Rocco. If you enjoyed today's show, please subscribe and leave a review. See my show notes to find out more about the show. And remember, life is not a dress rehearsal. Until next time.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:03

Life and how to live.