THE WHOLE PLANET DIET

For decades, the Mediterranean Diet has been held up as the gold standard of health. But critics argue there are bigger gains to be made with a global approach. And it's a lot more delicious, too.

- ANJALI PRASERTONG

You've No Doubt Heard about the heart-healthy, disease-fighting, longevity-promoting virtues of the Mediterranean diet. Health experts love it because it's simple and flexible, unlike complex and restrictive fad diets. On a Med diet, all you have to do is focus on eating lean proteins (especially seafood and poultry), with lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, unsaturated fats – and a little wine, if you'd like. Even the name itself conjures images of lazily nibbling olives in the sun. It isn't just a diet – this is a lifestyle.

But some dietitians are now questioning that image. The Med diet has always been narrowly defined. And as a glance at a map will tell you, the region extends beyond Greece and Italy – it's a vast swathe of land consisting of 22 countries including Tunisia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Syria and many more. To exclude those food cultures from our definition of the Med diet, even implicitly, discourages the consumption of a wide variety of incredible flavours and nutritious ingredients.

So why limit yourself?

The Med Diet: An Origin Story

No one person or brand owns the diet, but one study did conceive it. In 1950, heart disease was a leading cause of death in the UK and US, and scientists wanted to know why. After a few years of initial research, they started connecting cardiovascular health to diet. This brought about the 1958 launch of the Seven Countries Study, a massive cross-cultural analysis of how food and lifestyle relate to heart health. Ancel Keys, a physiologist from the University of Minnesota, led the research.