S4E153 The Pros and Cons of The Mediterranean Diet

On this final episode in our series on the Mediterranean Diet, I am once again joined by Bonnie as we talk about the pros/cons of the Mediterranean WOE.  

Enjoy!!
Brian

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I'm your host, Brian Wells, and I'm a fourth generation homesteader Since 2008, my family and I have been homesteading here in beautiful upstate New York. In 2019, I launched the Homestead Journey Podcast to help people just like you get started and find success on their journey towards self-sufficiency, self-reliance, and sustain. This is the Homestead Journey and this is season four. Well, hello everyone and welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome to the Homestead Journey Podcast. My name is Brian Wells. I am coming to you from three B Farm and Homestead here in beautiful, upstate new. This is season four and this is episode 153, and thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to join us here on the Homestead journey. Whether you're brand new to the podcast or you're someone who has been a longtime listener. Thank you so much. I know there's a lot of things you could be listening to right now, and the fact that you're taking time out of your busy schedule to listen to me, does not go unnoticed or underappreciated. I really, really do appreciate it. On today's episode, we are going to be wrapping up our series on the Mediterranean Diet. I am going to be joined here shortly by my lovely wife here in the Homestead Journey Podcast Studios, and so I am excited to chat with her about what we like and dislike about the Mediterranean diet. But before we do, I did want to take a few moments, as we usually do here on the podcast, and bring you up to speed with what we've been doing here on three B Farm and Homestead. So, as you might remember from last week's episode, we did just get back last Sunday from visiting my brother in Alaska. And so a big part of this week was just getting back into the swing of things, trying to recover from the time change, four hours that way, and then four hours back. And so it did take a little bit of time for us to recalibrate our internal clocks therefore this week probably wasn't as productive as it could have been or should have been, but I think we are back on East Coast time now. This week we did send a couple of our American Guinea hogs to their new home. Some friends of ours from church, bought a couple of those pigs and they are just enjoying having those pigs on their homestead. And in fact this morning their daughter was in the Sunday school class that my wife and I are teaching, and she just shared with us how excited she is to have the little piggies that they have named thing one and thing two, they're on their homestead. And so that is very, very, The other thing that I did wanna share with you is just an update on the seed starting system. Things are going so well with that. I am so happy right now with how things are progressing with that system. I think, I think we've, we've got a winner here, folks. It, it really is working very, very well. I'm happy to have. I don't know if I wanna call it mess, but all of that out of my office, or should we say out of the Homestead Journey Podcast Studios. But, uh, to have that downstairs out of the way is certainly not a bad thing. I, I'm, I'm glad to have that down there. And again, it's, it's working out very, very well. I am that added no supplemental heat to it whatsoever. It's staying at a nice, consistent, temperature. The plants are growing well and I'm really needing to get my next round of plant starts in there. I had hoped to get some flowers and things of that nature in there. Maybe get some cucumbers and some squash and maybe some lettuce. Started, not that you need to start that indoors, but maybe to give it a little bit of a jumpstart, Wasn't able to get around to it this week. In part, that's because yesterday we spent all day off the homestead. My son was in a regional mock trial competition. It's only the second time their school has ever made it. To the regional mock trial competition. Last year was the first year, unfortunately, they got knocked out in the first round, but this year I'm very, very proud to say they made it to the finals for regional. And unfortunately they lost by one point. They were one point away from advancing the states. A little bit disappointed in that, but overall, I was so proud of him. I was so proud of their team. It was definitely a great learning experience for him, but that did mean that we spent the entirety of yesterday off the homestead when we could have been getting some things done around here. But I wouldn't change it for anything unfortunately today. Well, it was one of those rainy days and it just rained and rained and rained all day long, which kept me indoors. I probably should have gotten some things started, as I mentioned in the seed starting system. Didn't get around to it. Maybe tomorrow we'll see, but, It is what it is. We'll get started, what we can get started, and the fact is we can always direct. So those things, we're really not all that far behind. That's really it for Homestead happenings for this week. Again, the time change, getting back into the swing of things, certainly not as busy as we maybe should have been. It is what it is. We're doing the best we can with what we've got to work with. And well, there's always next week. Before we head on over to this week's charting the course, I did want to invite you to sign up for our newsletter. If you head on over to the homestead journey.net/newsletter, you can do that for free. I have some exciting announcements coming up. I wanna make sure that you don't miss out on those. And so the easiest way for you to get that information, the quickest way for you to get that information is via our newsletter. So if you haven't already, head on over to the homestead journey.net/newsletter to get signed up. All right folks, let's jump on over to this week's charting the course.

Brian 7:07

I am so excited to be joined once again here in the Homestead Journey Podcast Studios, by none other than my lovely wife. Bonnie, thank you. Hi everyone. And now it has been a hot minute, babe. It has. But I am so glad to have you back as we wrap up this series on the Mediterranean Diet. And in fact, today we are going to end on a bang. We're going to end on a high note. We're going to talk about what we like and what we dislike about the Mediterranean diet. So let's just jump right into it. What is number one on your list of likes? I like that it's, foods that we already eat. Yeah. This way of eating really is comprised of a lot of things that we already. Eat. There really wasn't a lot that was thrown at us that we didn't eat. Now, there were a few things, and we'll talk about those in a little bit, but by and large this is really comprised of a lot of things that we already ate. We are a family that eats a lot of vegetables already. We. Enjoy salads and things of that nature. And so it wasn't like we were going into this and having to eat things that were unfamiliar to us. Yeah. That we weren't introducing into our diet. A lot of things that we didn't already know. And so that has certainly been a big upside to it. The second thing that we really, really like about this diet is what, We like the food. Um, we like, can you say that a little bit more? Enthusiasm. We like the food. We like, we love the food. We love the food. Yes. This is a diet, a way of eating that is extremely, extremely tasty. And, uh, I, I mean, delicious food and. Because of the fact that the Mediterranean really as a region encompasses so many different cuisines, there really are so many options that you have to choose from, that you can go in so many different culinary directions that you can almost sometimes feel a little bit overwhelmed, but you certainly do not have to have bland, tasteless food, and in fact, this diet. This way of eating really focuses on flavorful mm-hmm. Flavor packed cuisines. It really boils down to the fact that these are foods we knew and these are foods that just taste so good. And it's just like when I talk about people. Growing a garden, people will say, what should I grow? And I always say, well, grow the things you like to eat, because if you like to eat them, then you're going to eat them, right? And if you, and if you like what you're eating, you like what you're growing, you're going to have a tendency to grow more of it. So it, it's been the same way with this. Now, that's not to say that we've liked every recipe that we've tried. No one in particular was a dish with Eggplant and it was just, it was too mushy. Um, so I wouldn't make that dish again. I just didn't like how mushy it made the eggplant. Yeah. And so sometimes it's a matter of texture, sometimes it's a matter of flavor, but by and large, the foods when they're this way of eating are just absolutely delicious. We love, love, love the food, and I don't, I don't ever feel like I'm, I'm going hungry. I, I, no, I feel like I'm satisfied and we just really have enjoyed that piece of it. The next thing I really, really like about this diet is that it is easy to understand I found the plate diagram to be very, very helpful. When you look at your plate and you think, okay, half of it should be vegetable, a quarter of it should be lean protein. A quarter of it should be maybe some whole wheat or some starch or something along those lines. A little bit of fruit to the side, drinking some water, but it just really is. Easy for me to wrap my head around it. And also some of that goes back to what you talked about understanding these foods. These are foods that we're familiar with, we're familiar with Italian food maybe not quite as familiar with Greek food and, those in influences, although we've gotten more familiar with it. But at least having those cuisines as a frame of reference has been very helpful for me to wrap my head around it and understand how this wave eating should work. Now you've not necessarily found that plate diagram to be as helpful though? No, when I get it to the table and put it on my plate, I haven't really been conscious about, the amounts that are there. Not that that I overload my plate, it's just I haven't done the plate diagram. Yeah. It's one of those things where I think traditionally the American plate has been more, half meat, maybe a quarter starch and a quarter. Veg And so moving more in the direction of the half veg, quarter starch, quarter meat. I've definitely found the plate diagram helpful in that regard. That's been a little bit more of a growing edge for you now. W we've had a little bit of debate, at times over whether or not we had the proper proportions on our plate. And, one of those, situations involved a sweet potato honest mistake at my part, on my part. Um, I thought, you know, it was a vegetable, but it comes to find out it was a starch. Now, in all fairness, I probably was a little, I wouldn't say it was harsh about it. No, but you got yourself called Michelle. Yeah, no, that is true. Michelle Obama bride j referred to me as Michelle Obama with regards to, food portions on, on our plates. the plate diagram is more of this is what we're aiming for. But if you go by the Mediterranean diet pyramid, then certainly what we had on our plates would have been, for lack of a better term, compliant with the Mediterranean diet because the base of the Mediterranean diet is that things are. Plant-based things should be plant-based. And certainly a sweet potato is plant-based, so not really anything wrong with it. If you go by the Mediterranean diet pyramid, if you go by the Mediterranean Diet plate diagram though, then I would be right. So I guess we were both right. No. Sounds good. Okay, we'll go with that. I don't wanna get myself in any more trouble. But leaving the diagrams behind. For a moment. One of the things that I don't like about other diets and in particular, I'm, I'm gonna call out Weight Watchers, even though you have found Weight Watchers to be helpful in the past, but I just find this whole concept of having to come up with points, assigned point values. Do you weigh food in Weight Watchers or, yeah. Yeah. So measure weigh food and measure food and all of that kind of stuff. That's just too fiddly for me. I, I don't like that. And so not having to do that and just kind of rely on the plate diagram has made the Mediterranean diet, the Mediterranean way of eating much easier for me to understand and wrap my head around, and I really, really, really like that. The next thing I really like about the Mediterranean diet is that it is not an elimination diet. In the past I've kind of jokingly referred to myself as a vegetarian, but that doesn't mean that I don't like vegetables. I love vegetables. I love breads. I, I just love good food. And sometimes in the past that's shown we're not gonna talk about it. I remember when I went to the doctorate doctrine, uh, it's hopped on the scale, and they looked at the scale and they said to you, said to me, Mr. Wells, you are not obese. But you don't need to gain any more weight. So, uh, I think at that point in time, the fact that I, like food was showing, I don't know, as I could survive on a gluten-free diet. I don't know, as I could survive on a keto diet, I don't know, as I could survive on a carnivore diet Now, You do what you have to do. If that's all you have and that's what you gotta go by, or you have to do that for health reasons, then you do. You do what you have to do. But man, I would miss my bread. I would miss my vegetables. I would miss my carbs. I would miss the fat. Like those things, that elimination stuff that happens when you go on those types of diets would drive me bonkers. I love the fact that the. Focus of the Mediterranean diet is more about making good choices and moderation, not elimination. And so for me, that's been a very, very positive thing and been something that has really helped me keep going, another thing I really, really like about this diet is that we can grow a lot. Of the food that is considered compliant with the Mediterranean diet. And in fact, you and I found that when we sat down and we started thinking about what we were going to grow in the garden this year, and I was going over lists of vegetables that people recommend that you plant in a garden for people on the Mediterranean diet. And I covered this in a previous episode, but we found that with the exception of two things, I think it was, we are already growing everything that people recommend on the diet. Yeah, there was only, I don't know, I think maybe arugula. No I don't. It was like, no, I think it was, um, broccoli, Rob. Yeah, I don't remember. And one other thing, I don't remember what the other thing was. And broccoli Rob. Was already on my list of things that I wanted to try. I don't know as I'm gonna get it in this year, but that's neither here nor there. The fact is that we were already growing the vast majority of vegetables that can be grown in our area. Mm-hmm. We were already growing them, and so I really, really like that. Another thing that I really, really like about this diet is that it is based on an active lifestyle and eating within the context of community. Now, eating in the context of community is something that was not new for us. Yeah. We have always practiced that. You and I and Brian, Jay, we've always sat down and eaten at least dinner. Right. At least dinner. Yeah, at least dinner. As a family, if I'm home and you're home at this, at the same time, many times we eat lunch together. We're not a huge breakfast family, so even on the weekends we don't really sit down, eat occasionally. Yeah. It's very rare though. We kind of get up and we want get up on a Saturday morning, on a Sunday morning until, if we're grabbing breakfast, we just kind of eat it on our own. But we do eat at least dinner. Or supper, however you want to call it, the evening meal, we shall say we eat that together in the context of of community. So for us, that was not anything new, but it was certainly validation of what we've practiced as a family, but the idea of the Mediterranean diet being built on an active lifestyle. Has been something that has been a bit of, I don't wanna say an eye-opener for us. It's been a growing edge for us, I think, and well, we perhaps haven't taken as much action in regards to this as we should. We're at least aware of it. Mm-hmm. We're aware of the fact that we live a little bit more of a sedentary lifestyle than we thought we did. Yeah. Or, or even as we used to, I mean, before Covid and when I was doing the whole Weight Watchers thing several years ago, you know, I would go to the D gym and I would walk, 10 minutes on the treadmill and then like I haven't been back to a gym since but there's no reason why I can't go outside and walk. And now that it's getting warmer and, yeah. And so what both you and I have done is we have installed pedometer apps on our phones. Mm-hmm. We're just like everybody else in, in, in the United States. This is kind of our ball and chain. We're very rarely without it. And so that really, I think, has served as, as a, at least as for me, It's been a bit eye-opening to see how much I don't move, how much I sit. I, I work a desk job, and certainly in the wintertime, I'm, I'm gonna be a little bit more sedentary. You know, even with the homestead, I, I jokingly refer to the homestead as my gym in, in the winter. You go out, you feed the animals, you come in. You really don't do a whole lot. At least we don't. And, and, and this has certainly been eye-opening, so there have been many evenings when I found myself walking in circles around the island in the middle of our kitchen just to get my step count up. But it, it certainly has at least made us more aware mm-hmm. Of the need to have a little bit more of an active lifestyle. And so now that. Things are starting to warm up. We'll be able to get outside. Certainly we'll be doing more outside raking lawns, putting in gardens, so we're, we'll definitely be a lot more active just because of the season, o o of the year. But we'll also have the opportunity to take long romantic walks. Yes, of course, hand in hand, frolicking, frolicking. Carry on frolicking in the fields with daisies in your hair. As I sing to you, the hills are alive with the sound of music. I think it'll go to the gym, but certainly I do like the fact that it is. Based on the premise of an active lifestyle and eating with the context of community, I think those are very, very positive things and that certainly will help us both from a health perspective. The last thing though, and I think the most important reason why we like the Mediterranean diet, and that is what it works. Yeah, it works. Now. You and I have both found benefits, I think a little bit of a different benefit for each one of us, but it certainly has worked for both of us. Now, for me, I went into this really more, with the desire to be supportive of you not trying to throw my shoulder outta joint here, patting myself on the back. I did get kudos from your doctor though, in, in regards to that. Did I not? Yes, yes. She said, that's awesome that you have a husband that will do that with you and keep doing what you're doing. Yeah, I mean, I just, I hope you took notes. I hope you recorded that, uh, so that you can replay that back, but no. For me, I did not go into this with any kind of necessarily health benefit goals, and yet I've lost a lot of weight as a result of being on this. And it's not just a matter of I've lost weight, I've lost enough weight that people are noticing it. You know, somebody at church came up to me on Sunday and said, Man, if you lost weight, you look like you've lost a lot of weight. And I, I was happy to say, yeah, I'm under 170 pounds for the first time and I don't know how long. So that certainly has been a very, very positive thing for me. Now, you haven't necessarily lost quite as much weight as me and. That's kind of getting into, you know, a, a, a very, um, dangerous area as, as a man to talk to a lady about her weight. So we're gonna stay away from that. I mean, you might wanna mention that you've lost a few pounds. Yes, I lost about eight, nine pounds and I have maintained that, But I haven't taken the extra step in doing the extra things that I need to do, to take more weight off. But where you found benefit to this, and this was really the reason why we did this in the first place, where you found benefit has been that I'm no longer pre-diabetic. My lev I'm in, um, where the levels where I should be. Yeah. We'll, we'll get some more applause going on there, but yeah, you were no longer pre-diabetic. Yep. And that's very, very exciting. This has actually done what we had hoped it would do. Now you go in, I think, six months for another checkup. Right. Yeah, she said, good job, getting to where you are, but I wanna make sure you're keeping up with, the, way of eating and you're behaving yourself and then we'll, make it a year appointment and you won't have to add more checkups. So, it is very, very exciting. Now that certainly does provide that carrot on the stick for us to keep going in this direction because we've put in all of this work, we've put in all of the money, and we wanna make sure that we keep reaping the rewards and the benefits of it. And so the fact that it has worked, mm-hmm. It has at least worked for us, has been a very, very positive thing. Now, certainly we're not saying to everybody that this is going to work for you. You know, your mileage may vary. Everyone's body is different. All of the disclaimers that I can put in there from a legal perspective. So nobody sues me as giving out, uh, some kind of health advice. I'm not a registered dietician. No. But for us, it has worked. It has done exactly what we had hoped it would do. But even beyond the weight loss and even beyond. The A1C dropping, you've also found another benefit. What's that? Inflammation, has gone down. I'm not in as much joint pain, as I had prior. and I didn't realize that until, the holidays when we're not. As good, we're going to other people's houses and we don't expect them, to cater to us and we're on vacation. Um, and so we're not eating like we would at home. Um, and I realized like, wow, my joints are starting to hurt again. And so the way we were eating had helped with my inflammation. Yeah, definitely. And, and I think a, a good point that you make there is that this is not something that we have tried to push off on anybody else. You know, we've had people say, what, what can you have? What can you, no, we're not rolling like that. Mm-hmm. For us, this is not a matter of. Of life and death. Right. You, you know, this is something that we're doing because it is health helpful and helpful to us, but we're not trying to push us on everybody else and be like, oh, you know, we're vegetarian. We're vegetarian. Like you've got a, and we appreciate that people are willing to work with us, but we're never gonna demand that of anybody. You know, we go to somebody's house. It's kind of the way you and I were both raised. You go to somebody's house. And just as a matter of respect, you eat what's put before you. Mm-hmm. And you shout up and you like it. And that's just how it is. And, and again, it's totally different. If you're somebody who is lactose intolerant or you are glued intolerant, then at that point, that's a totally, totally different thing. And yes, you, you, you shouldn't be eating food that is going to make you sick, um, or make you, you feel bad. Um, but that's not the case for us. Mm-hmm. You know, it takes quite a bit of, of days of maybe non-compliance. Yeah, yeah. You know, for, for it to catch up. And even, even still that inflammation that you're feeling. It's uncomfortable, but it's not like you're an absolute agony or anything agony or anything like that. But the fact is this way of eating. Has been beneficial, both from a weight loss perspective, reducing the A1C for you and reducing inflammation. Mm-hmm. It works and success breeds success. And so when you find something that works, you wanna stick with it, you want to get better at it, you wanna refine it. And that's certainly what we plan on doing to continue that success. However, it's not all roses. There are a few things, and I, I struggle with using the term dislike, but there are a few things about this diet that, or maybe more like cramps, our style, maybe we should have said pluses and minuses. I, I don't know, but we're just gonna call 'em dislikes. So number one, what is it? it's expensive. Yeah. It, it, it can, it can be, yeah. It can be expensive. Yeah. Uh, and, and I've mentioned this before, um, you know, as a good farmer, every once in a while you have to take stock in what you're putting into. I was gonna say animal, but boy, that would be, oh, oh boy. I don't know if I wanna go there. I've already, we've already touched on that weight thing, and so I've already lived dangerously. But yeah, I've sunk a lot of money into you, baby. You're expensive, but I'm worth it. You are. And, and at the end of the day, I wanna keep you around. I do. I really do. I want to keep you around, and so I'll put a little more money into you if I have to, but I don't know, you creep it up on that threshold, right? I might have to reevaluate. No, but I, I'll joke in the side, folks. Folks, it, it can be costly and in part, one of the big components of the Mediterranean diet is seafood. And we like seafood, but we don't live near the sea. So, and I think even if you do live near the sea, um, seafood is still fairly expensive, but, If you go buy fish at the store and you're buying a good quality fish, it's going to cost money. It's going to be expensive. And it's not just that, but when we did this, we did this kind of at the wrong time of the year, we did this when we couldn't grow. A lot of the things that, hindsight being what it is, we would have grown. We might have preserved more of, but we didn't know we were gonna be making this transition. And so it was kind of a little bit late in the game. And so certainly we've seen an increase in our grocery bill as a result of this. Now, hopefully this year we'll be able to grow more of the stuff that we need and we'll see that grocery bill go down, yeah, one of the oils of choice, on this way of eating is olive oil and olive oil. It's expensive. Yeah. If you buy a high quality olive oil, it certainly can be expensive. And, and that's something where you really don't wanna cheap out because. As we've learned, as we've, you know, kind of studied into this, not all olive oils are created equally, and there are some that are not necessarily true olive oils and some that are not actually true extra virgin olive oils. And we could go way down that rabbit hole. We're not going to, but certainly if you're buying a high quality olive oil, it's going to be expensive. But a lot of it goes back to something that I've said before. On this podcast, and that is that there's a real cost to raising real food. And so if you're not raising or growing the real food, there's a real cost to buying real food. One of the things that we have almost totally eliminated from our diet has been the prepared prepackaged, the processed foods. Mm-hmm. And those foods have a tendency to be the cheap foods. Things like macaroni and cheese, boxed rices, prepared salads like the, the pasta, salads, those kinds of things are cheap foods. Chips are cheap foods. But certainly not foods that are good for you. Mm-hmm. And when you start buying better quality food, better quality ingredients, there certainly is a a cost to that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. On the other hand, we also look at it from the standpoint of we're investing in our health. Yeah. And if we don't pay that cost now, then what we're going to end up doing is paying that cost later in medical bills. Mm-hmm. Insulin, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So if we can avoid that by eating better, certainly we would want to. But cost is certainly a downside. Mm-hmm. To the Mediterranean diet. Next thing, it's not convenient there's a whole lot more thought that needs to be put into it, a whole lot more, prep work that goes into it. Yeah, definitely. Again, going back to the fact that we, you've cut out almost all of the prepackaged and the processed foods, it definitely means that you're cooking from scratch. And not that we didn't cook a lot from scratch before, but we would use a can of cream of mushroom soup in the crockpot with some chicken breast and some mushrooms, you know, quick meals like that. And now we are not doing that. We're having to chop vegetables almost every night, which we didn't necessarily always do. Making salads far more frequently than we used to. there just is a lot more prep. Yeah. That takes place. And not just a lot more prep, but because you're eating fresher foods. You're not eating as many prepared foods or pre-packaged foods, then you have to put a lot more thought into your menu planning because you may not necessarily have those things that in the past you would've relied on. Mm-hmm. On the shelf. And so that's been certainly a bit of a growing edge for you. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Cuz I was just one, you know, like when I'm busy I, just open up a can op, open up a box. Um, there you go. Here's your supper. So it's a lot more planning. Yeah, definitely a lot more planning, a lot more prep, A lot more kitchen time in this way of eating. All right. The next thing that we don't like, I hate to say, don't like, but the next negative thing, I don't know, whatever. For me, it's sugar, sugar and sweets. It's not, um, something that's special to this way of eating. I should be doing it already, but. I'm still struggling with the sugar, and how much ice cream I should be having I think the sweets are your Achilles heel. Yes. And. You're right. This is not something that would be unique to this way of eating or to this diet. Most diets, if somebody is looking to reduce their a1c, yes, reduce their weight. Number one thing would be reduce the amount of sugar intake. Hmm. Now, the beautiful thing about the Mediterranean diet is that it's not an elimination diet. And so again, referring back to the Mediterranean diet food pyramid at the very tippy top, our sweets and red meats, it's just a matter of you eat them every once in a while. You eat them in moderation, you eat them in small amounts. And when you stop and you think about the cuisines of the Mediterranean region, places like Greece and Italy and France, they're known for some of the best desserts in the world. You think about Greece, I'm not sure if there's anything much better than baklava. Mm-hmm. I love baklava. Although I'm probably, I'm not pronouncing it entirely correctly, but you know what I'm talking about. The Italians have their cans. The French are well known for their pastries, and, and so that, that's okay. The fact that the Mediterranean diet is built around the concept of community, one of the biggest parts of community is getting together and celebrating milestones. And a big part of that is to celebrate with things like cakes and, and pastries and so on and so forth. So you don't need to eliminate them, but it's just being more intentional about it. It's being more about moderation. You have a sliver of cake. You don't eat the whole cake, you have a donut. You don't in eat the entire box of donuts. You don't eat donuts every day for breakfast. You don't sit down and have a pint of ice cream every night before you go to bed. Not that you ever do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Clarify that. But, um, you know, every time that you're driving by the ice cream shop, you don't have to feel that pull of the wheel into the, uh, the ice cream shop. And we're getting into ice cream shop season up here. I know, I know. Everybody is opening up, but even still, when you do pull into the ice cream shop, when you veer in, one of the things that I found, I used to always get either a super large sundae or I would get like the large cone. Now I get a small mm-hmm. Yeah. I get one scoop and it's all good. So it's just about moderation. Can I get an amen? Sure. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. So there's a couple of other things that I don't like about the Mediterranean diet. All right? And one of them is a big one. And this is what really threw me for a loop. And I've talked about this, so I'm not gonna beat this drum too hard here, but I don't like. That there are so many things that make up the Mediterranean diet that I cannot raise and grow here on my homestead. We live in beautiful, upstate New York. I'm never gonna be able to grow olives. I'm never gonna be able to produce olive oil. I'm never gonna be able to grow capers, never gonna grow artichokes. Those are just things that without me investing in some kind of super. Infrastructure here and some kind of a greenhouse or whatever. Citrus. Mm-hmm. Another big part of the Mediterranean diet is just not going to happen. I don't like that. I don't like that one little bit, but it's all good. I'm trying to focus on what I can do and not get focused on what I can't do. Another big one though was seafood. Last time I checked, I don't got a. Pond in the backyard, that stock full of salmon and cod and haddock and shrimp and scallops and all of the good stuff. Now, the good thing is we were just up in Alaska, spent a week with my brother. He sent me home with a cooler full of fish. And as I sat down and I started thinking about how much it would cost me to buy, That fish in the store. I actually think that we almost paid for one of our plane tickets. Wow. By the amount of fish that we brought back from Alaska. Wow. I, I don't think that's an exaggeration at all, and especially knowing that it's wild caught that it's not. Mm-hmm. Farm salmon, you know, which there's a lot of controversy about that. But anyhow, the fact of the matter is, If you're gonna be following the Mediterranean diet and you're going to increase the amount of seafood, unless you're living in a place like Alaska, you're living on the coast, you're gonna find that you are gonna be paying for that because you can't produce it. And I don't like that. But as our friend Barb reminded me, she said, Brian, you don't think anything about buying sugar to put in your jams and jellies? She's right. And definitely the fish and the olive oil are much better for us than the sugar for the jams and the jellies. So as you can see, really the benefits outweigh the negatives. Mm-hmm. Everything has its upsides and its downsides and a lot of it just really. It comes down to perspective. If we get fixated on what we can't grow, instead of focusing on what we can raise and grow, produce and process on our homestead and what we can raise, grow, producing process, far outweighs what, what we can't. Mm-hmm. Focusing on the cost. When, if you look at it from a flip side, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Mm-hmm. Thinking about, well, it takes more thought, effort, and energy to put together a meal now will stop being a lazy bum. What? Not you. Not you, not you. That's not what I'm saying. I didn't think so. No, I wasn't saying that to you. Oh, okay. Oh, oh. Who I'm get myself outta trouble. No, but again, it's just a matter of perspective and thinking about, you know, if we are too busy Yeah. Then maybe. Maybe you're too busy. Too busy. Yeah. If, if we're too busy to invest in our health, then maybe we're too busy. Mm-hmm. And we just need to keep the right perspective on it. Mm-hmm. But folks, for us, the Mediterranean diet has been, it's been a godsend. It really has been very, very helpful to both of us and I, and I hope that it will continue to be any. Parting words of wisdom as we wrap up the series? Well, if you have the same health issues or you would like to give it, um, this Mediterranean way of eating a try, I would, I would recommend it, because it works. Yeah. I agree. I definitely would highly recommend that people at least give it a looksie. And give it the old college. Try and see how it works for you. If you decide to give the Mediterranean Diet a try. Reach out to me, Brian, at the homestead journey.net. Let me know. Let me know how it works out for you, and if there's anything that we've said on this episode or anything in this series that you disagree with. Let me know. I certainly am always wanting to correct the record, and so if you're somebody who is a dietician who knows far more about this stuff than I do, reach out to me. Let's have a conversation. Maybe we can get you on the show and maybe you can set the record straight and get us all headed in the right direction. Because at the end of the day, that's what it's all about. It's about the journey, the homestead journey, and it's also about that journey towards better health. For all of us. All right, babe, we're gonna wrap it up here. Thanks so much for joining me. That's it for this series on the Mediterranean Diet. We're going to be shortly heading into a series on the Empt Nest. Yes, it's coming way faster than we want it to. It is coming way faster than we want it to. In fact, the other day I looked at the calendar and I thought, You know what? In about three months it's gonna be just you and me, babe. Just you and me, babe. Are you ready for it? Well, at least you know, like you'll have his room to sleep in if you need to. I don't have to sleep with the chickens any longer. Alright folks, thanks so much for tuning into this episode, and until next time, keep up the good work.