Mediterranean Diet for Heart Health

[Cali13]

My husband recently had a stent put in and the cardio doc recommends a Mediterranean Diet.  I have the basic info, but need more web resources and recipes.  If anyone has any ides I would appreciate them.

I was also told this diet helps with blood sugar.  Has anyone had that result?

[COSBruin]

I grew up in a household where we ate mostly Lebanese food and I'm diabetic. Blood sugar is about carbs. The Mediterranean Diet that I grew up eating included way too many carbs. I now watch my carb intake very carefully. Watch out for the carbs in Hummus and rice. We ate a lot of rice! Otherwise, it's great. Find a good olive oil to cook with and to use in salad dressings. I recommend the cookbook "Lebanese Cuisine" by Madelain Farah for authentic recipes just like mom use to make. Good luck!

[Mcore]

Hi there @COSBruin @Cali13! I found this great web site if you want to check it out. I believe it has really good information.

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/why-are-mediterranean-diets-so-healthy

Have a great day!

[Cali13]

Spoiler

Not really happy with the taste palate.  I can do chicken and fish, but the heavy oil, even the light olive oil, is not apealing..  Going to have to experiment with this.

[OCDOC]

Here's the Jan 2016 updated AHA dietary guidelines. Pretty long, but quite readable, and discusses EVERYTHING. If Diabetes is a concern, there are a number of professionals who suggest less carbs than is stipulated here (plus the Med Diet can be heavy on carbs depending on choices..as mentioned above).

Good Luck and here's to good health!

http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/133/2/187.full.pdf+html?sid=50aa3782-e20b-429a-ac4b-39da26a9bd03

[Nomad92]

Hi.

It is healthy for everyone and everything, not only for your heart.

http://allrecipes.com/recipes/723/world-cuisine/european/italian/

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/greek

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/spanish

PLEASE be told that NOT all of these meals are " healthy ". They all might be mediterranean, but not all of them are healthy. Just go for the light option with olive oil and less fat.

It also is important to understand a medi. diet. It's not the origin that makes this diet healthy, it's the ingredients. The key-point of a medi.diet are ingredients like olive oil, olives, and a lot of FRESH grown herbs like basil, parsley majoran and things like this. It also is said that there is a lot of fish and lean meat involved, carbs are usually only there in form of rice or light bread ( I can't really advise white bread though, even if it is a part of medi.diet ). You can also cook healthy without using medi.recipies. You can also just follow mediterranean cooking styles. Use olive oil instead of butter to fry, or coconut oil, use less meat and more fish etc ...

Just read yourself in to it. I live quite mediterranean myself, even if I hardly follow exact medi.recipies, my cooking style is more of a mediterranean one.

Cheers.

[Nomad92]

Use less oil then !