Four Ways To Upgrade The Mediterranean Diet

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Four Ways To Upgrade The Mediterranean Diet

The Mediterranean Diet is considered by many to be the current “gold standard” of healthy eating, and with good reason. With 10,000+ studies underpinning it and counting, it has a pretty hefty weight of evidence.

(For contrast, the Ketogenic Diet for example has under 5,000 studies at time of writing, and many of those include mentioning the problems with it. That’s not to say the Keto is without its merits! It certainly can help achieve some short term goals, but that’s a topic for another day)

Wondering what the Mediterranean Diet consists of? We outlined it in a previous main feature, so here it is for your convenience 😎

To get us started today, we’ll quickly drop some links to a few of those Mediterranean Diet studies from the top:

The short version is: it glows, in a good way.

The anti-inflammatory upgrade

One thing about the traditional Mediterranean Diet is… where are the spices?!

A diet focusing on fruits and non-starchy vegetables, healthy oils and minimal refined carbs, can be boosted by adding uses of spices such as chili, turmeric, cumin, fenugreek, and coriander:

Why and How the Indo-Mediterranean Diet May Be Superior to Other Diets: The Role of Antioxidants in the Diet

The gut-healthy upgrade:

The Mediterranean Diet already gives for having a small amount of dairy, mostly in the form of cheeses, but this can be tweaked:

Mediterranean diet with extra dairy could be a gut gamechanger

The heart-healthy upgrade

The Mediterranean Diet is already highly recommended for heart health, and it offers different benefits to different parts of cardiovascular health:

The Mediterranean Diet: its definition and evaluation of a priori dietary indexes in primary cardiovascular prevention

The DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet can boost it further, specifically in the category of, as the name suggests, lowering blood pressure.

It’s basically the Mediterranean Diet with a few tweaks. Most notably, red meat no longer features (the Mediterranean Diet allows for a small amount of red meat), and fish has gone up in the list:

Description of the DASH Eating Plan

The brain-healthy upgrade:

The MIND (Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay) diet combines several elements from the above, as the name suggests. It also adds extra portions of specific brain-foods, that already exist in the above diets, but get a more substantial weighting in this one:

MIND and Mediterranean diets linked to fewer signs of Alzheimer’s brain pathology

See also: The cognitive effects of the MIND diet

Enjoy!

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  • Insomnia? High blood pressure? Try these!

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    Your Questions, Our Answers!

    Q: Recipes for insomnia and high blood pressure and good foods to eat for these conditions?

    A: Insomnia can be caused by many things, and consequently can often require a very multi-vector approach to fixing it. But, we’ll start by answering the question you asked (and probably address the rest of dealing with insomnia in another day’s edition!):

    • First, you want food that’s easy to digest. Broadly speaking, this means plant-based. If not plant-based, fish (unless you have an allergy, obviously) is generally good and certainly better than white meat, which is better than red meat. In the category of dairy, it depends so much on what it is, that we’re not going to try to break it down here. If in doubt, skip it.
    • You also don’t want blood sugar spikes, so it’s good to lay off the added sugar and white flour (or white flour derivatives, like white pasta), especially in your last meal of the day.
    • Magnesium supports healthy sleep. A fine option would be our shchi recipe, but using collard greens rather than cabbage. Cabbage is a wonderful food, but collard greens are much higher in magnesium. Remember to add plenty of mushrooms (unless you don’t like them), as they’re typically high in magnesium too.

    As for blood pressure, last month we gave tips (and a book recommendation) for heart health. The book, Dr. Monique Tello’s “Healthy Habits for Your Heart: 100 Simple, Effective Ways to Lower Your Blood Pressure and Maintain Your Heart’s Health”, also has recipes!

    Here’s one from the “mains” section:

    Secret Ingredient Baltimore-Style Salmon Patties with Not-Oily Aioli

    ❝This is a family favorite, and no one knows that it features puréed pumpkin! Most salmon cake recipes all for eggs and bread crumbs as binders, but puréed pumpkin and grated carrot work just as well, lend a beautiful color, and add plenty of fiber and plant nutrients. Canned salmon is way cheaper than fresh and has just as much omega-3 PUFAs and calcium. Serve this alongside a salad (the Summer Corn, Tomato, Spinach, and Basil Salad would go perfectly) for a well-rounded meal.❞

    Serves 4 (1 large patty each)

    Secret Ingredient Baltimore-Style Salmon Patties:

    • 1 (15-oz) can pink salmon, no salt added
    • ½ cup puréed pumpkin
    • ½ cup grated carrot (I use a handheld box grater)
    • 2 tablespoons minced chives (Don’t have chives? Minced green onions or any onions will do)
    • 2 teaspoons Old Bay Seasoning
    • 1 tablespoon olive oil
    • ½ large lemon, sliced, for serving

    Not-Oily Aioli:

    • ½ cup plain low-fat Greek yogurt
    • Juice and zest from ½ large lemon
    • 1 clove garlic, crushed and minced fine
    • 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
    1. For the patties: mix all the ingredients for the salmon patties together in a medium bowl
    2. Form patties with your hands and set on a plate or tray (you should have 4 burger-sized patties)
    3. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat.
    4. Set patties in a skillet and brown for 4 minutes, then carefully flip.
    5. Brown the other side, then serve hot.
    6. For the Aioli: mix all the ingredients for the aioli together in a small bowl.
    7. Plop a dollop alongside or on top of each salmon patty and serve with a spice of lemon.

    Per serving: Calories: 367 | Fat: 13.6g | Saturated Fat: 4.4g | Protein: 46g | Sodium: 519mg | Carbohydrates: 13.2g | Fiber: 1.3g | Sugars: 9g | Calcium: 505mg | Iron: 1mg | Potassium 696mg

    Notes from the 10almond team:

    • If you want to make it plant-based, substitute cooked red lentils (no salt added) for the tinned salmon, and plant-based yogurt for the Greek yogurt
    • We recommend adding more garlic. Seriously, who uses 1 clove of garlic for anything, let alone divided between four portions?
    • The salads mentioned are given as recipes elsewhere in the same book. We strongly recommend getting her book, if you’re interested in heart health!

    Do you have a question you’d like to see answered here? Hit reply or use the feedback widget at the bottom; we’d love to hear from you!

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  • Insights into Osteoporosis

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    It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

    Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!

    In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

    As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

    So, no question/request too big or small

    ❝I would like to see some articles on osteoporosis❞

    You might enjoy this mythbusting main feature we did a few weeks ago!

    The Bare-Bones Truth About Osteoporosis

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  • 5 Ways To Beat Cancer (And Other Diseases)

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    A Systematic Approach To Healthy Eating

    Dr. William Li, known for ways to beat cancer and other diseases, in front of a blue background.

    This is Dr. William Li. He’s a physician, cancer researcher, and educator. He also founded the Angiogenesis Foundation back in 1994.

    We recently reviewed one of his books, “Eat To Beat Disease”.

    He has another book that we haven’t reviewed at time of writing, “Eat To Beat Your Diet“, which you might like to check out.

    What does he want us to know?

    He wants us to know how to eat to beat cancer and other diseases, by means of five specific angles:

    Angiogenesis

    This is about replacing blood vessels, which of course happens all the time, but it becomes a problem when it is feeding a cancer in the process.

    Here, based on Dr. Li’s work, is what can be done about it:

    A List of Anti-Angiogenic Foods for a Cancer-Fighting Diet

    Regeneration

    Generally speaking, we want to replace healthy cells early, because if we wait until they get damaged, then that damage will be copied forwards. As well as intermittent fasting, there are other things we can do to promote this—even, Dr. Li’s research shows, for stem cells:

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    Microbiome health

    Healthy gut, healthy rest of the body. We’ve written about this before:

    Making Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)

    DNA protection

    DNA gets unravelled and damaged with age, the telomere caps get shorter, and mistakes get copied forward. So there more we can protect our DNA, the longer we can live healthily. There are many ways to do this, but Dr. Li was one of the first to bring to light the DNA-protecting benefits of kiwi fruit:

    Kiwi: A Darling for DNA

    Immunity

    Paradoxically, what’s good for your immune system (making it stronger) also helps to protect against autoimmune diseases (for most people, for the most part).

    In short: it’s good to have an immune system that’s powerful not just in its counterattacks, but also in its discerning nature. There are dietary and other lifestyle approaches to both, and they’re mostly the same things:

    Beyond Supplements: The Real Immune-Boosters!

    and thus see also:

    Keep Inflammation At Bay

    Want to know more?

    You might enjoy his blog or podcast, and here’s his TED talk:

    !

    Want to watch it, but not right now? Bookmark it for later

    Enjoy!

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    In contrast, Dr. Norman Doidge sticks with science, and the only “vibrational frequencies” involved are the sort that come from an MRI machine or similar.

    The author makes bold claims of the potential for leveraging neuroplasticity to heal many chronic diseases. All of them are neurological in whole or in part, ranging from chronic pain to Parkinson’s.

    How well are these claims backed up, you ask?

    The book makes heavy use of case studies. In science, case studies rarely prove anything, so much as indicate a potential proof of principle. Clinical trials are what’s needed to become more certain, and for Dr. Doidge’s claims, these are so far sadly lacking, or as yet inconclusive.

    Where the book’s strengths lie is in describing exactly what is done, and how, to effect each recovery. Specific exercises to do, and explanations of the mechanism of action. To that end, it makes them very repeatable for any would-be “citizen scientist” who wishes to try (in the cases that they don’t require special equipment).

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    Dr. Bang is offering exercises to alleviate neck pain, which pain can be a real… Well, if only there were a good phrase for expressing how troublesome pain in that part of the body can be.

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  • Here’s how to help protect your family from norovirus

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    What you need to know

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    You can get sick with norovirus even if you’ve had it before, since there are many different strains.

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    This article first appeared on Public Good News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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