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Commonalities Between
the Paleo Diet & the
Mediterranean Diet
What is the Mediterranean Diet?
The Mediterranean Diet is a concept that was
first explained by Ancel Keys when he studied
the nutritional habits of large groups of men
in southern Italy in the 1950s. Based on his
observations, Keys hypothesized that people
who ate a certain set of foods had a lower risk
of heart disease. The main foods he pinpointed
were fish, eggs, dairy products, vegetables,
beans, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and healthy
fats such as olive oils. He also noted that red
wine was commonly consumed in moderation
among the participants of the study. Keys’
ideas were later updated in the 1990s by Dr.
Walter Willett of Harvard University’s School
of Public Health, who proposed a pyramid of
the Mediterranean diet as “a cultural model for
healthy eating.”
It is easy to see how a diet consisting of
the foods Keys identified would be a huge
improvement over the current standard
American diet that includes a great deal of
processed oils, refined sugar and grains. My
husband grew up in North Africa, where his
food was truly local and seasonal. I was lucky
enough to spend eight weeks in his hometown
on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea,
observing the local culture and eating wonderful
authentic dishes that gave me a deep insight
into the cuisine of the region.
The Paleo diet can be thought of as
almost a version of the Mediterranean diet,
though without beans and grains, and with an
emphasis on the factors of food quality and
lifestyle. Additionally, some people choose to
include high-quality, grass-fed dairy in their
Paleo/Primal approach, which would make it
even closer to the Mediterranean ideal.
Here are the six main commonalities
between the Paleo diet and a Mediterranean
diet as I experienced it during my travels in
Algeria and Morocco.
1. Elimination of processed foods: The most noticeable thing about the Mediterranean
diet pyramid is the lack of processed foods. One could argue that bread is a processed
food, but in the scheme of things, bread has been around much longer than Cheesy
Poofs. Plus, a sprouted, fermented bread made from ancient einkorn grain would likely
be tolerated by a larger number of people than the Roundup-soaked hybrid super-gluten
wheat that’s commonplace today.
2. Eating with the seasons: One of the things I noticed when I spent time in Algeria and
Morocco is how truly dependent they are on seasonal food. When something is no longer
growing, it is gone. They do not have a lot of food shipped in from Chile and Mexico the
way we do in the USA. When we walked to the local farmers market near my husband’s
childhood home, there was a selection of 10 or 12 items—and that was all. The rest
of the fruits and vegetables you might see year round in California where we live were
nonexistent. This creates novelty around