Before we get started I have a question for you. How often do you think you should eat red meat? Once a day, once every few days, once a week, once every few weeks, once a month, never? So pause the video, think about it and let me know.
Now the reason why I asked you that question is because we are going to talk about today the Mediterranean Food Guide Pyramid, and the reason why we’re talking about this today is because this is another food guide pyramid that I like for certain reasons. I don’t like it as much as some other ones, but there are some really good things that they emphasize on this food guide pyramid and I think they’re important enough for you to know about them
At the very bottom of the pyramid, I love that they’re highlighting physical activity. And they’re highlighting dance and walking which is really cool because a lot of people think that physical activity, you know is boring, in the gym, going to you know workout, but it doesn’t have to be that. I don’t have that image of exercise. You can do something that you enjoy whether it’s dancing, or whether it’s walking around in the mall, or whether it is you know playing a sport that you love. But I like that they’re emphasizing this as the number one priority on your daily routine.
The next category is whole grains, carbohydrates. It does have potatoes on here, breads and pastas. I’m not a big fan of highlighting a lot of carbohydrates in a diet like this one does emphasize, but I do like that they are emphasizing whole grains like a lot of the other food guide pyramids. So that’s the key to remember.
Now the next one up from that, the next category up is fruits, your beans, legumes and nuts, and your vegetables. And I like that they are saying into the next of this category, on a daily basis you need to get all of these foods. Your fruits obviously provide a ton of vitamins and minerals. Your vegetables, I don’t really have to say a lot about that. You should know that you got to eat your vegetables on a daily basis. And then your beans, nuts and legumes provide an excellent source of protein, low calorie and low fat.
Now the category above that is your olive oil. And this is the main reason why I really like this food guide pyramid is because they’re emphasizing olive oil, and right above the fruits and vegetables. So they’re putting a pretty high priority on these healthy oils. A lot of people think you know in order for you to lose weight, have to have a healthy diet, you can’t have fat in your diet. Well this is one of the fats that you need to have in your diet. This protects your heart. This protects your body against inflammation, and reduces a lot of problems. So if you have this on a daily basis, that is fabulous. Now one thing I want to mention is if you are going to have olive oil in your diet, you do not want to cook with olive oil. That breaks it down. It keeps you from getting all the benefits of those healthy fats. So for instance, this is a way that you can use it, if you have just steamed your broccoli, drain the broccoli, take it out of the pan, put it in a bowl, drizzle your olive oil over it, toss it, and serve it. So that is a way that you use the olive oil, or you of course can put it on a salad, anything you know if you’ve just cooked a piece of salmon, take it off of the grill, let it cool down for a little while then brush it with olive oil. So that way, the olive oil’s not heating too high and you’re getting all those healthy benefits.
It’s that cheese and yogurt on the next category above the olive oil. So I like that they’re emphasizing the plant oils before the saturated fats. Yogurt, I like that they’re putting yogurt on there because of course yogurt contains all that healthy bacteria that is going to help your immune system and your digestive system become more efficient. And then they’re both great sources of calcium.
The next four categories, it says to the right of it, weekly, so weekly you should consume fish, poultry, eggs and sweets. So in other words, they’re saying that if you don’t have protein, you know meat, egg, fish, poultry at every single meal, that’s alright which is really good especially for Americans who tend to overeat in certain animal food and certain animal products. So this is a good way to balance out your food intake if you are excessive in your animal intake. I like that they also put sweets on a weekly basis because like you may know, most people eat sweets on a daily basis, for a weekly basis, so this is emphasizing balanced moderation, only on a weekly basis.
To the left side of the pyramid, it has glasses of water and wine. It says wine, drink that in moderation, you know alcohol drink that in moderation. And it says six glasses of water a day. So this is good too. A lot people don’t drink enough water. A lot of people drink too much alcohol. So I just like that they’re including this to help reinforce the things that you need to work on.
And then monthly and this is why I asked you that first question on the very front of the video. It says red meat on a monthly basis. Now, so according to this pyramid, they say monthly, I don’t believe that it needs to be that far spread out. But I do like that they’re really pointing out that red meat should not be on a daily basis, it should not be on a consistent basis. Just because it’s providing a high source of protein and some minerals, doesn’t mean that you need to have it on a daily basis. It is hard to digest. It takes a really long time to process in the digestive tract. It does promote acidity when you’re eating, you’re digesting it. And it is typically high on saturated fats compared to the other animal products. So all those reasons I think that they, that’s why they put red meat at the top of the pyramid.
So that is the Mediterranean Diet Pyramid which is, a lot of people in the Mediterranean region follow this diet. They have very long life span. They have lower rates of cancer and lower rates of health diseases and diseases in general. So keep that in mind, this is a good pyramid to follow for the different benefits that we talked about and thank you so much for watching. I will see you next time. B-bye.
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