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:
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!
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