© 2013 Nancy B. Emerson Lombardo and Brain Health and Wellness Center®
My readers may ask, what is the difference between the Mediterranean Diet and Dr. Nancy’s Memory Preservation Nutrition® program. The simplest answer is, the two are compatible. If one followed the basic Mediterranean Diet one would be quite close to realizing the Memory Preservation Nutrition program, although most descriptions of the Med Diet fail to mention the importance of the herbs and spices used as key ingredients.
The primary difference is that the Mediterranean Diet relies on certain foods (e.g. olive oil) that are available and popular in countries that ring the Mediterranean. The Memory Preservation Nutrition program relies on strategies that can be applied to ANY country or ethnic cuisine. It gives guidance for choosing brain healthy foods from among all those available to a particular person in a particular place.
Some descriptions of the Mediterranean Diet also fail to address the negative role of sugar and white grains and starches. although the Predimed Diet did limit sweets. Historically people following the traditional Med Diet ate so many healthy foods they balanced out the white bread and white pasta or white rice that traditionally constituted part of the cuisine. Sweets were typically a rare treat, not eaten every day. Today, sweets and processed foods are more prevalent even in the Mediterranean countries, and the quality of the meat and poultry has also begun deteriorating though not to the egregious degree as in the US. In the US most “industrial” farm animals and poultry are fed mainly cheap grains, not allowed to free range and thus are devoid of Omega 3’s and other nutrients obtained from grass and green vegetation, and are so vulnerable to illness that they are dosed with antibiotics and other medications.
To learn more:
Visit my website (for brain and heart healthy recipes as well as more ideas), as well as the website for the Spanish Med Diet study: http://predimed.onmedic.net/eng/Home/tabid/357/Default.aspx This website also contains, in Spanish only, shopping lists and recipes for the two Med Diet intervention groups (olive oil and nuts).
Recipes: http://predimed.onmedic.net/eng/ImplementationoftheIntervention/RECIPESBYINTERVENTIONGROUPS/tabid/582/Default.aspx (Ignore the Low Fat section as that did not help people).