The Mediterranean Diet Pyramid

I’ve seen this Mediterranean diet pyramid in several books now, and I finally decided to have a look at the website of the company that came up with it. Very interesting reading!

The Mediterranean Diet

The Mediterranean Diet was created by Oldways as a response to the prevalence of ‘no fat’ diets in the early 90’s. Low-fat was a mistake promoted in the 1988 Surgeon General’s report and the 1990 Dietary Guidelines and Food Guide Pyramid. Oldways’ alternative response to this no-fat propaganda was the Mediterranean Diet Pyramid. Fats should be “good” fats, which are mono-unsaturated and poly-unsaturated, with olive oil as a prime example. Oldways doesn’t attack the models being offered to the public, but merely offers a better alternative that was more science-based and incorporated good fats (mono-unsaturated and poly-unsaturated), such as olive oil.

Here’s a PDF file from Oldways of the pyramid that you can print out or just examine if you’d like!