by Professor Mrs.  Antonia Trichopoulou, Director of WHO Collaborating Center for Nutrition in Greece
 
The traditional Mediterranean diet meets many of the criteria of an optimal diet: It has health-promoting properties; it is palatable; and it is compatible with a sustainable environment. Although the Mediterranean diet was shaped by history, climatic conditions, poverty and hardship, rather than by intellectual insight or wisdom, it seems as if some superior force led the Mediterranean populations to exploit fully the bounty of nature and thus develop a prudent diet.
 
The health-promoting properties of the Mediterranean diet have been documented in many populations, including populations outside the Mediterranean region, but much of the convincing original work, from the days of Ancel Keys on, has been done on the Greek population, giving credence to the notion that the traditional Greek diet represents a distinguished prototype of the traditional Mediterranean diet. The traditional Greek diet has been found to reduce mortality from coronary heart disease and several forms of cancer and to increase longevity. Indeed, in the late 1960s, when the fast-food epidemic had not yet invaded Greece, mortality among adults in this country was among the lowest in the world.

Specific Greek Products and Health
In simplified terms, the traditional Greek diet relies on high consumption of olive oil, which in Greece, more than in any other country, is extra-virgin; high consumption of plants foods, including vegetables, legumes, fruits, and unrefined cereals (many of which form the backbone of the country’s agricultural economy); preference of fish over meat; and an emphasis on feta cheese and yogurt, rather than other dairy products. Moderate consumption of wine, mostly during meals, is also beneficial, provided that the dogma of not mixing drinking with driving is respected. 

 Recent studies have documented that the combination of food intakes is of paramount importance, but it is obvious that the high quality of the component foods is also critical. Greece is justifiably proud for the high quality and palatability of many of its food products, including olive oil and feta cheese, as well as for a wide range of traditional foods that have that have long made the traditional Greek diet distinct. Olive oil, for example, has always been considered sacred and invaluable. In Greek mythology it was considered a gift of the gods. Today, medical research has identified myriad beneficial health properties in olive oil. The unusually low incidence of coronary heart disease in France (the “French paradox”) has occasionally been attributed to the high consumption of cheese by the French, but Greeks consume per capita as much cheese as the French in the form of the country’s traditional feta. 

 Prepared foods and even some confections have an impressive array of healthful properties. Most notable among them are the savory greens pies, pasteli (a sesame-and-honey brittle), spoon sweets made with seasonal fruits, sun-dried tomatoes, legumes and pulses such as fava (yellow split peas), and more.  The surprising nutritional properties of many of these foods are only now being recognized. For instance, some of the green pies contain very high quantities of important antioxidants, in fact much higher than those found in other foods widely reputed as antioxidant-rich.

 The traditional Greek diet, as a prototype of the traditional Mediterranean diet, finally has been recognized for its health-promoting attributes. Now it’s time to get to know the food products that form the most important components of this renowned diet.