The Mediterranean Diet

Peata

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Has anyone else tried to follow a version of the Mediterranean Diet?

I did off and on over the years. I know there are different versions as the countries around the Med. vary in what they eat, but there are some guiding principles that are easy to find when you look into the diet. I emphasized extra virgin olive oil, tons of veggies, some fish, etc. At different times I used more dairy. The idea of eating this way held a lot of appeal for different reasons not to mention it's been touted as one of the healthiest woe in the world. I never received any noticeable positive effects from it that I can think of. I find my Peat woe so far is giving me the results I've looked for.

Anyway, just thought it would be interesting to get others' thoughts on the Med. Diets.
 

Beebop

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The "Mediterranean Diet" is a myth. According to this article the myth was invented by Ancel Keys, who created the Diet-Heart hypothesis - that saturated fat causes heart disease.

http://www.westonaprice.org/traditional ... anean-diet

It should be fairly obvious to anyone with knowledge of the real food that is eaten in Mediterranean countries that "The Mediterranean Diet" (olive oil, grains and veg)' must be a myth.
They eat those things but also lots of meat, butter, organs, sugar, ice cream, not to mention coffee! (yum)

That's the gist of the article.

Glad you're finding good results with RP, Peata!
 

Beebop

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If I go to a Greek restaurant then I'm thinking:
Large chunk of slow cooked lamb on the bone, rice, coffee, and baklava with honey. (Ok, no baklava any more).

When I was in Italy I was a vegetarian so missed out on all the meat and fish courses, but I think the Italians thought I was mad. :lol:
 

Gabriel

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I believe that a true Mediterranean diet, as Beebop pointed out, is very healthy. The average interpretation of a Mediterranean diet by North Americans and North Europeans however is not very healthy.

In fact, most traditional diets that developed locally and gradually over long time periods without the influence of misinforming doctors and greedy corporations are very nourishing. There are hundreds of them and they differ substantially in fat/carbohydrate/protein composition and individual food selection.

Two important questions arise:
1. Are these diets healthy because local people co-evolved with them over hundreds of years and adapted them to fit their own genetic repetoire?
2. If the above is true, is such a "local diet" healthy for somebody with a genetic repertoire that doesn't derive from that specific region? I.e. is a Massai diet healthy for an Asian? Is a Mediterranean diet healthy for a Scandinavian? Is a Kitavan diet healthy for an Mediterranean guy? And to provoke, are the foods that Ray Peat eats regularily healthy for person with a different genetic background than Ray Peat?

In my opinion, there is no "one perfect diet for everyone". There is just "a perfect diet of an individual person". This very diet may destroy another person not adapted to it.
 

kiran

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Gabriel said:
And to provoke, are the foods that Ray Peat eats regularily healthy for person with a different genetic background than Ray Peat?

In my opinion, there is no "one perfect diet for everyone". There is just "a perfect diet of an individual person". This very diet may destroy another person not adapted to it.

I can certainly believe that there is a "safe-for-everyone" diet or range of diets. It's also certainly obvious from reading the forum that we have different requirements and tolerances to various stressors, so perfect for everyone is probably a stretch. Besides, the "Peat diet" certainly involves a lot of self experimentation and introspection anyway.
 
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Peata

Peata

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Thanks for your thoughts, Beebop. I was a veg for a little while too, and I passed by some great foods then I'm sure :) That also happened when I was doing some other woes strictly.

Just some more random things about "the Med. Diet" that comes to my mind. I was using a lot of evoo during my "Med. days" but then I read about how so many times it's not pure, but mixed with other oils, or it's already rancid when it gets over to the US grocery shelves.

I also agree, Gabriel. With most of the things I read on the Med. Diet through our media, it always seemed to me they were inserting the usual modern day precautions about not eating too much meat, dairy, sugar, salt, fat, etc. From appearances, these articles and books wanted to present a Med. Diet all doctored up to fit how they want you to eat, not how the diet really was/is for the people in those various countries.

Though some diets in the world do not sound that appealing to me, if they are supplying all the nutrients and the people eating it are healthy, then I think if I went there and ate the same diet, after a period of adjustment, I would also do well, give or take some of the foods that my system might not agree with. I don't think one *exact* diet fits all. But I do think humans as omnivores can survive on just about anything. Thrive though, is another thing. I've read multiple accounts of people moving to the US from another country and not maintaining their old diet but taking up the SAD -and experiencing declining health. I've also read anecdotal accounts of people living in another country, taking up the local diet, and looking and feeling the best they have. I personally don't eat like Ray Peat - I don't feel my best on so much liquid, for example, but have adopted certain things to make a Peatish woe that seems to be working for me. I wonder if that's why Ray Peat doesn't have The Ray Peat Diet -doesn't have "what to eat" clearly outlined - because there's no real one diet fits all.
 
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Peata

Peata

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kiran said:
Gabriel said:
And to provoke, are the foods that Ray Peat eats regularily healthy for person with a different genetic background than Ray Peat?

In my opinion, there is no "one perfect diet for everyone". There is just "a perfect diet of an individual person". This very diet may destroy another person not adapted to it.

I can certainly believe that there is a "safe-for-everyone" diet or range of diets. It's also certainly obvious from reading the forum that we have different requirements and tolerances to various stressors, so perfect for everyone is probably a stretch. Besides, the "Peat diet" certainly involves a lot of self experimentation and introspection anyway.

:yeahthat
 

montmorency

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I agree with a lot of what's been said before. Plus I think a big factor for people actually living in Mediterranean countries would be the social setting. I don't know Greece, but I know Italy a little better, and eating is part of the way of life, and a very social thing. It's about far more than just eating. Same in France, especially in the south, I would think.
 

himsahimsa

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To add a very late comment here:
The actual Mediterranean diet, until after WWII, contained NO seed oils. Only olive, butter and rendered fats. The only PUFA came from fish, very few walnuts eaten in the fall and oil from wheat germ remnant in bread. Animals ate forage, not grain based "feed" and so got no exaggerated PUFA input to pass on.

Flax oil was used for paint and called linseed oil. My father was an artist. As a child, I asked him about eating the linseed oil. He told me it was poisonous and no one would eat it. His parents were from Italy, its inedibility would have been classed as "common knowledge".
 

burtlancast

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himsahimsa said:
As a child, I asked him about eating the linseed oil. He told me it was poisonous and no one would eat it. His parents were from Italy, its inedibility would have been classed as "common knowledge".

Indeed.
Lineseed exposed to air becomes rancid in only 15 minutes.
The Budwig followers are ingesting it by the gallon, blended with cottage cheese.

Ray has written about Johana Budwig being completely unscientific in her promotion of flaxseed oil for cancer.
But i would still like him to expand further about it.
 

narouz

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My difficulty in commenting on "The Mediterranean Diet" or "The True Mediterranean Diet" or "The Real Mediterranean Diet" is...just what is it?

As mentioned up the thread, it may be that the idea of such a diet
came into currency here in the US because of Keys.
I don't know.

But when my friend some years ago told me he was eating "The Mediterranean Diet,"
I remember that I went home and googled it
and came away still puzzled.
Earlier the same friend had told me he was eating The Asian Diet...

If, by the term "The Mediterranean Diet,"
we are simply trying to evoke
the diet that people living around the Mediterranean Sea ate
at some time in the past...
that's a start.
 

charlie

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burtlancast said:
Lineseed exposed to air becomes rancid in only 15 minutes.
The Budwig followers are ingesting it by the gallon, blended with cottage cheese.
:shock:
 

narouz

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Interestingly (to me, anyhow), Peat said in an interview,
that there is a rational way that (ingesting big amounts of PUFA oil) might work positively:

Peat said that when that much oil is taken in that quickly,
it simply acts as a laxative,
evacuating everything from the bowels.
That, Peat said, is the basis of a rational, anti-cancer diet:
clearing the bowels, removing endotoxin, etc.

Very little of the PUFA would be absorbed in that scenario, Peat said.
 

burtlancast

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Charlie said:
burtlancast said:
Lineseed exposed to air becomes rancid in only 15 minutes.
The Budwig followers are ingesting it by the gallon, blended with cottage cheese.
:shock:

Once lineseed oil is bonded with the sulfate groups found in cottage cheese, it's protected from oxydation and becomes hydrosoluble , thus gets easily carried everywhere by the blood.

Budwig's rationale was the omega 3 PUFA are part of the respiratory complex chain in the mitochondria; by ingesting it, she theorized O2 consumption by the cancerous patient increases ( she had determined cancerous patients didn't have omega 3 PUFAS in their blood, contrary to normal folks).

Ray accepted these PUFAS have a definitive role in helping energy production inside the mitochondria, yet completely discounts their effects in Budwig's cancer plan.

Animals contain desaturase enzymes, and are able to produce
specific unsaturated fats (from oleic and palmitoleic acids) when deprived of the ordinary "essential fatty acids," [7] so it can be assumed that these enzymes have a vital purpose.

The high concentration of unsaturated fats in mitochondria-the respiratory organelles where it seems that these lipids present a special danger of destructive oxidation-suggests that they are required for mitochondrial structure, or function, or regulation, or reproduction.


Unsaturated fats have special properties of adsorption, [8] and are more soluble in water than are saturated fats.

The movement and modulation of proteins and nucleic acids might require these special properties. As the main site of ATP production, I suspect that their water-retaining property might be crucial.

When a protein solution (even egg-white) is poured into a high concentration of ATP, it contracts or "superprecipitates." This condensing, water-expelling property of ATP in protein solutions is similar to the effect of certain concentrations of salts on any polymer. It would seem appropriate to have a substance to oppose this condensing effect, to stimulate swelling [9, 10] and the uptake of precursor substances.

Something that has an intrinsic structure-loosening or water-retaining effect would be needed. The ideas of "chaotropic agents" and "structural antioxidants" have been proposed by Vladimirov [11] to bring generality into our understanding of the mitochondria.
 

Blossom

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burtlancast said:
Charlie said:
burtlancast said:
Lineseed exposed to air becomes rancid in only 15 minutes.
The Budwig followers are ingesting it by the gallon, blended with cottage cheese.
:shock:

Once lineseed oil is bonded with the sulfate groups found in cottage cheese, it's protected from oxydation and becomes hydrosoluble , thus gets easily carried everywhere by the blood.

Budwig's rationale was the omega 3 PUFA are part of the respiratory complex chain in the mitochondria; by ingesting it, she theorized O2 consumption by the cancerous patient increases ( she had determined cancerous patients didn't have omega 3 PUFAS in their blood, contrary to normal folks).

Ray accepted these PUFAS have a definitive role in helping energy production inside the mitochondria, yet completely discounts their effects in Budwig's cancer plan.

Animals contain desaturase enzymes, and are able to produce
specific unsaturated fats (from oleic and palmitoleic acids) when deprived of the ordinary "essential fatty acids," [7] so it can be assumed that these enzymes have a vital purpose.

The high concentration of unsaturated fats in mitochondria-the respiratory organelles where it seems that these lipids present a special danger of destructive oxidation-suggests that they are required for mitochondrial structure, or function, or regulation, or reproduction.


Unsaturated fats have special properties of adsorption, [8] and are more soluble in water than are saturated fats.

The movement and modulation of proteins and nucleic acids might require these special properties. As the main site of ATP production, I suspect that their water-retaining property might be crucial.

When a protein solution (even egg-white) is poured into a high concentration of ATP, it contracts or "superprecipitates." This condensing, water-expelling property of ATP in protein solutions is similar to the effect of certain concentrations of salts on any polymer. It would seem appropriate to have a substance to oppose this condensing effect, to stimulate swelling [9, 10] and the uptake of precursor substances.

Something that has an intrinsic structure-loosening or water-retaining effect would be needed. The ideas of "chaotropic agents" and "structural antioxidants" have been proposed by Vladimirov [11] to bring generality into our understanding of the mitochondria.
Do you think lacking the delta 6 desaturase enzyme is an issue? I have never been able to find an adequate answer to this question.
 

narouz

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Ancel Keys from Wiki:

..."As a result, in 1956, representatives of the American Heart Association appeared on television to inform people that a diet which included large amounts of butter, lard, eggs and beef would lead to coronary heart disease. This resulted in the American government recommending that people adopt a low-fat diet in order to prevent heart disease.
Keys had concluded that saturated fats as found in milk and meat have adverse effects opposite to the beneficial effects of the unsaturated fats found in vegetable oils. This message was obscured for a 20-year period starting around 1985, when all dietary fats were considered unhealthy. This was driven largely by the hypothesis that all dietary fats cause obesity and cancer....[29]"
 

narouz

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Ancel Keys from Wiki, con'd:

"He examined the epidemiology of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and was responsible for two famous diets: K-rations formulated as balanced meals for combat soldiers in World War II and the Mediterranean diet, which, with his wife Margaret, he popularized."
 

narouz

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"His intellect was well-known ever since a young age as Lewis Terman, noted psychologist and inventor of the Stanford-Binet IQ Test identified Keys as one of the 1528 intellectually "gifted" students that he studied at Stanford.[2] During his youth, he left high school to pursue odd jobs such as shoveling bat guano in Arizona, working as a powder monkey in a Colorado mine, working in a lumber camp [3] and even working as a crewmember on a ship to China.[2] He eventually finished his secondary education and was admitted to the University of California at Berkeley in 1922."[3]
 

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burtlancast

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Blossom said:
Do you think lacking the delta 6 desaturase enzyme is an issue? I have never been able to find an adequate answer to this question.

I see this as a problem to be resolved by experimentation on animals.

I've read Budwig's english books, and she wrote that the blood of cancer patients was lacking omega 3 PUFA's, while the blood of normal people didn't.
Knowing these PUFA's could be found at the mitochondrion's level, she theorized supplementing them ( by making them more soluble in blood with the help of cottage cheese, very rich in sulfhydryl groups) would kickstart O2 respiration in cells.

She explained that Warburg had recognised that some kind of fat was active in the respiratory enzyme (cytochrome oxydase) he had written about, and that lack of this unknown fat was interfering with oxygen utilisation by the living tissues; he was unable to identify it ( he unsuccessfully tried butyric acid).
All the vitamins ( A, B, C, D , E) didn't succeed either in restoring respiration . ( scientific article published in 1951)
Svent Gyorgy experimented with fats on the deficient respiratory enzyme, but wrote in 1952 that these substances are too easily oxidized and cannot be detected.

Animals made asphyctic (unable to process correctly O2) through certains diets, like bleached rice, still die when given supplemental O2, or any other substance or vitamin ( B vitamins included).

Budwig claims she resolved the 60 years old riddle of Warburg's respiratory enzyme activator and was able to restore normal oxydation by administering linoleic acid, ideally in conjunction with linolenic acid.

She of course applied her theory to herself, and lived well into her nineties (according to Peat, that would be nearly impossible).

If what Budwig wrote is untrue, and oxygen utilisation by tissues doesn't increase with omega3 fats, then the matter would be resolved.
But Ray hasn't written specifically on Budwig's central claim, other than saying PUFAS help with energy production in the mitochondria, owing to their water-retention properties.

As far as Ancel Keyy's concerned, the man is responsible-accomplice for probably millions of deaths from heart disease.
 

himsahimsa

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RP said that the protocol that Budwig derived her therapy from used the flax seed oil as a purgative not a nutrient.
 

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