Mediterranean Diet

The olive oil in the food balance…

Why do we have to eat balanced? Simply to satisfy 100% of our nutritional needs. To vary food is the only way of bringing the necessary elements to the support and good running of our body.
Food it’s also cooking, sharing, exchanging. Taking time to taste new savours, to cook lighter recipes, to invite friends… In a daily balanced and tasty food, we can easily satisfy our body and have pleasure. Varied food and balanced meals can satisfy the gourmands, becoming real gourmets. The olive oil is part of it..

The olive oil, an healthy oil…

The ID of the olive oil
Lipids : 99% (900 calories for 100g)
Vitamin E : 150mg/kg
Traces of vitamin A : 17 for 100 g
Saturated fatty acid : from 8 to 25%
Monounsaturated fatty acid : from 55 to 80%
Polyunsaturated fatty acid : from 3,5 to 21%

Olive oil : where do you come from ?

From the Antiquity, the olive oil nourished man of its benefits. It’s in the birthplace of the olive tree cultivation that the first traces of the cooking with olive oil appear. Even though we miss literacy traces, many testimonies indicate that olive oil was used in Cretan cooking from the third and second millenaries BC.
Chemical analyses of the cooking tools of Minoans prove that man of this time cooked with olive oil. Nowadays olive oil is tasted as a good wine and gives pleasure, health and aromas. Thanks to its inimitable taste, tasty and fruity, the olive oil brings sun in our plates and awake senses and aromas. The olive oil is the contrary of neutral oil, when we cook it, it conserves its aroma, its nature, its different taste. As necessary as pepper or salt, always present on table, used raw or warm, the olive oil, full of vitamins and minerals, opened the way of a light cooking very rich in savours that Chefs use today.
Since the end of the 90’s, terroir products, the cult of thinness and of well-being contribute to the renewal of the olive oil. Its cooking, its health and diet qualities are recognized.

The olive oil in the Mediterranean diet, the oil of Cretans…

As we find different food habits in the fifteen countries around the Mediterranean Sea, there is one constant: the large use of olive oil. When we talk about “Mediterranean diet”, we refer to traditional food of Greek islands of Crete and Corfu; this is why we call it sometimes “Cretan diet”.
The exceptional longevity of Cretans is due to their food diet. This ancient method mixes health and thinness and is based on the consumption of fruits, vegetables, fish, not much of red meats, and mainly olive oil.

Eat Mediterranean…
The Mediterranean food is the art of eating well

The traditional Mediterranean food satisfies largely to the recommendations about nutritional balance: but the health benefits of this way of eating do not only result of the food constituting it. They are also part of a culture, a certain way of eating. Here are some other characteristics which make the Mediterranean food particularly good for health. Frugality: traditionally, frugality was one of the important characteristics of the food behaviours in Mediterranean area.
A second aspect of the Mediterranean food is its great diversity, a well-known fact recognized as one of the keys of the nutritional balance. Finally, the search of food pleasure (the tastes but also the aromas, the textures, the colours,…) is another characteristic of the Mediterranean culture. The refusal of the food monotony carries for the food diversity.

More vegetables, more taste and more pleasure… Some arrangements to balance your daily plate

The originality of the Mediterranean food relies on the proportion of the different food groups. It is a varied food, where each kind is present, but in specific quantities. Fruits and vegetables, cereals and legumes form the base, meat, fish and milk products are only complements. This balance is daily used and for each meal. Raw fruits and vegetables are well present in the Mediterranean style: tomato, salad, cucumber, cabbage, fennel, minced onions are served as starter or with the main dish. Having more vitamin C than cooked vegetables, raw vegetables, thanks to their size and water, promote satiety without bringing superfluous calories. Traditional seasoning with olive oil contributes to increase the input in mono and poly fatty acids and vitamin E. Fruits represent the simplest and healthiest form of dessert and brunch: low in calories, fresh fruits are excellent vectors of vitamin C, carotenoids, polyphenols, potassium,…