Mediterranean Veg

Holidaying in Southern Spain this year we enjoyed the Mediterranean cuisine. A typical meal was salmon fillet with pesto sauce homemade (basil, pine nuts and olive oil) and stir-fried Mediterranean vegetables.

Our Mediterranean vegetable medley consisted of eggplant (aubergine) and zucchini (zucchini) and pepper.

I wonder why the United Kingdom, we use the French word "zucchini", while in the United States the same vegetable is the Italian "zucchini". It's as if none of the two Anglo-Saxon had any time to appoint the vegetables!

Anyway, our meal of salmon, pesto and vegetables bursting with nutrients that you find in a healthy diet. Omega 3 fatty acids in salmon, monounsaturated fat in olive oil, and polyunsaturated fatty acids in pine nuts. Plus all the fat-soluble vitamins that go with this (it is A, D, E and K).

At this meal we have no starches (potatoes, rice or bread), because excess starch is big producer. And we get all the carbohydrates we need vegetable mixture.

And the vegetables are full of vegetable that will make your arteries sing!

Now note that this meal is low in fat. But it is so tasty and nutritious as your body does not need tons of that food. And this regime is good at lowering cholesterol despite (or perhaps because of) its fat content.

Standard American Diet (or sad) Contains 42% fat, mainly saturated fat. American doctors are eager to get patients to a diet low in fat (fat around 20%) to lower cholesterol. But the Mediterranean diet reduces cholesterol almost as well as diet low in fat - and tastes much better and full of nutrients.

And the Mediterranean diet contains ... wait for it ... 38% fat. These new arteries because of American cardiologists started because they have difficulty admitting that this high-fat diet works!

It is, of course, the right kind of fat. And this regime is low in sugar and rich in whole grains, so it is more than just the fat that help lower cholesterol.

The fat "= low health" lobby is so strong (and I think how many diet plans are built around it) that only the teeth that some physicians acknowledge that the Mediterranean diet is healthy.

But this plan meets our taste buds and satiety centers of the brain. We love food and satiety.

So you can not be on the Mediterranean, but you can eat bounty of nature while adding to your health and reduce your waistline.

The Mediterranean diet is of particular interest because of all the colorful veggies in it. Peppers, for example, come in different colors and all are good to eat. I like red because they add visual punch to a meal and are particularly useful if you do not care for tomatoes (another red fruit that is closely linked to peppers).

So what is so wonderful about that blush? Well, you get a whacking amount of vitamin C, flavonoids many beneficial for maintaining healthy arteries and a good dose of carotene. The carotenoids are the pigments that give red pepper color.

Carotenes are powerful antioxidants and tend to be soluble in fat, so they act as antioxidants for fats containing bits of you. Now I know you think of hip fat wobbly at this point, but expressed such thoughts aside!

Structurally fat is used for useful things like making your cell membranes. Tissues composed of a lot of layers of cells have a large number of cell membranes and thus, for example, your skin has a lot of fat in it. I do not mean the layer of fat under the skin, I mean the structure of skin cells. soluble antioxidants help protect cells. And that includes your skin inside - so that the carotenoids help protect your skin, your intestinal wall and lungs (both your INSI.