Mediterranean diet?

[itrezcbmko]

I’ve decided I’m going to try and follow a Mediterranean diet for the health benefits it’s said to bring.

If you follow it, what do you tend to eat? Any suggestions or recipes to get going would be appreciated.

Lots of colourful veg and fruit. Chicken and fish. Chickpeas.

Do you just turn the chick peas into hummus?

I already try and eat lots of fish and little red meat, but I eat far too much white bread and very rarely have grains, pulses or beans. Don’t really know what to do with them except add to salad or chilli.

I never eat pasta or rice and I’m not too sure whether to start including them or not because it says to stay away from carbs.

We live in Spain currently, I try to include lots of lentils, chick peas and beans in our diet.
Queen butter beans are my favourite. Luckily they have jars available.

What sort of meals DP you make with them?

To be honest, it's mainly salads with the beans added.
It's too hot for a stew, but ratatouille is pleasant lukewarm.
I found a tin of tripe and lentils that my dh had got before I arrived

https://www.heartuk.org.uk/healthy-diets/the-mediterranean-diet
https://www.diabetes.org.uk/living-with-diabetes/eating/meal-plans/mediterranean
Two versions here.
As PP said good fats, nuts, seeds, pulses, oily fish, lots of veg, good quality carbs.

Have a look at the Bold Bean Co website. Loads of lovely recipes there, you can also buy their jarred beans in supermarkets, which are very good but very expensive. Much cheaper to buy cans or dried and boil up yourself, you can freeze them once you've made a batch.

Yesterday I made hummus with a can of chick peas and also a spiced butter bean and tomato salad. You can also make endless stews, soups or traybakes with any type of pulses.

Not Mediterranean but you can also use any type of beans in Mexican or Indian food, we eat loads of this type of food, dal, curries, bean chillis with or without meat, refried beans etc.

You can also mix chick peas into a salad of grains, herbs and chopped cucumber, tomatoes, peppers, onions.

I cook chickpeas with chicken.peppers and tomatoes in the oven or in salads....

I don’t follow a Mediterranean diet (or any diet really but it’s very varied overall) although I do make a lot of chickpea salads. As a pp mentioned, the bold bean do really nice jarred options of beans. I think if you’re cooking them and they’re simmering for a while then the tinned cheaper ones are fine but for something where they’re going to be a main ingredient and not cooked any further then I’m happy to spend more for a better product. They are really creamy. I hate hummus.

Obviously type of food is important. However, how it’s cooked is in my opinion is as important.
I’m French DH is Italian both eating this type of food all our lives.
We grill or oven bake, rarely deep fry, in summer always grill meats and veggies.
Diner is lighter than lunch meals.
Our friends always loose weight when they come to our holiday home not because they are starved they eat more than they usually do it’s how it’s cooked and what we eat also drink tons of water.
We walk and swim as accessible every day.
We don’t tend to snack between meals, we do like to have wine and aperos coffee is always espresso no milk or sugar apart from breakfast cappuccinos.

Olive pasta fruits pulses beans fish seafood vegetables bread freshly baked without preservatives is more healthy.

Every recipe i have tried on the Bold beans website has been amazing! If i 'need' bread for mopping up purposes i have a Corn tortilla which works for me 🙂

If you have not done already then check out the blue zones cookbook. Loads of great recipes. My health has impracticality. But I don’t limit carbs in any way. I just limit meat and dairy.

The bold bean website is good for recipes.

I add chickpeas or beans to most things really. Nice added for a few minutes at the end as you roast vegetables.

Make a salsa with black beans, avocado, chilli, spring onion, tomatoes and a bit of salt and lots of lime and coriander.

I eat a lot of lentil soup in the summer.

Veg soup with beans. If I'm using a carton of soup I'll heat up beans in it...

That was ‘my health has improved dramatically’ !