My Interpretation of a Mediterranean Diet

In our world, the transition to Mediterranean-style eating isn't too hard, because we already like and eat a lot of the required foods. The biggest change I've found is rearranging our current understandings of the Canada Food Guide into different orderings. 

The rule of thumb for the biggest food consumption at the bottom of the pyramid is whole grains, fruit and vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds, olive oil at every meal and snack. The next two levels are seafood and poultry. How I am interpreting this is to minimize the consumption of typical protein sources and increase consumption of alternative (beans, nuts, etc) and not worry too much about healthy fats such as olive oil. That being said, I'm still watching portion sizes. Nuts are delicious, but very high in calories and fat. Portion sizes still matter, even when eating healthy options.

We're definitely in for an interesting month!

We had a guest for dinner last night. We had Greek Chicken Pitas with a Greek Salad on the side. Between 5 of us there were 7 chicken thighs in the meal, cut up into bite-sized chunks, cooked with a lot of vegetables. Whole wheat pitas were stuffed with fresh spinach, a little bit of feta cheese, and topped up with the chicken and vegetable mixture. On the side was a generous helping of salad, of which there are plenty of leftovers. Those will be eaten over the next couple of days. As our friend and I discussed the Mediterranean food pyramid, he remarked that the meat is more like a side dish. I concur, agreeing that vegetables and fruit are the "star" of the meals.

Today looks like this:

• Breakfast was an oven omelette and a cup of coffee. This time I made them Greek-inspired, so there's no ham or cheddar cheese- just cooked with a bit of feta under the egg, and 1/4 c. of vegetables per egg.

• Snack will be a serving of homemade rice pudding that's been cooked with apples and raisins
  
• Lunch is a Greek-Salad stuffed whole-wheat wrap and an orange
  
• Snack will be a small bowl of nuts with a hummus-filled deviled egg (recipe to follow- watch for it!)
  
• Dinner will be vegetarian tonight- recipe will follow after I make it (watch for it!)
  
• Snack tonight will be sliced apples and a cheese string with a slice of peanut-butter toast.
  

I'm excited to share our month of Mediterranean-inspired eating with you. Can you think of one healthy change you can make to how you eat? I'll post soon about simple changes everyone can make to how they eat and drink to get on the road to being healthier.
Have an excellent Monday!