Re: Mediterranean Diet

Speak for yourself Baggy darlin' - as you know I am a gormand and cook most days for myself from fresh ingredients.

Re: Mediterranean Diet

Hi Sandi, I've noticed Meg's asked a question so I'll put my observation in answer to hers. However, you've mentioned lighter food rather than the heavier diet we tend to eat in the UK - I wonder if that is significant? I'm not sure that the Spanish are heavy drinkers - they like a bottle of plonk but when living there and I offered Spanish workmen something to drink (my husband offered them a cold beer) they refused and preferred water saying that alcohol 'is no good in sunshine'!

Re: Mediterranean Diet

I know you have far better taste than a ready meal diet .....UJ

In fact you should be in the where to eat guide ? '0)

Re: Mediterranean Diet

As mentioned earlier, I have lived in Spain for a few years and one thing I did notice is that bruises and cuts seem to heal much more quickly and as the climate was the only real difference, I'd put it down to that. I also felt generally healthier (physically and mentally) in that climate (until it got too hot then I'd scurry back here until September!). Maybe regular Vitamin D has something to do with it?

Re: Mediterranean Diet

Not WHERE Baggy darlin' - but WHAT and in what quantity!!!

Re: Mediterranean Diet

Very true - there is little convenience foodstuffs (that we would eat, I have seen tinned and jarred octopus/squid and other stuff I wouldn't eat).

Not all UK people ...

Re: Mediterranean Diet

I think we're more stressed out here, not to mention depressed because of the weather we have to put up with, also we don't express our emotions like the Mediterraneans, therefore don't get rid of our stress

Re: Mediterranean Diet

I also think stress plays a big part in it all. I think Brits live a life surrounded by anxiety and aided little, if at all, by government. Spanish governments (local ones) do seem to pay a lot of attention to creating a social setting for it's people and paying more attention to workers not being overworked. No diet in the world will compete with that.

Re: Mediterranean Diet

Yes, I think there is no one thing that contributes but a combination of things.

BV even the hospitals here have a glass of wine on their menus for their main meal at night as they say it aids digestion.

What horrifies me though is when in the supermarkets you see women with children and their shopping trollies are loaded with convenience meals very little fresh fruit and vegetables. Cereals that are loaded with sugar. Children learn their eating habits from the home and usually that's what they carry on with throughout their life and when you hear parent's say "Oh, my kids will only eat junk food." Well they only have themselves to blame for not teaching them in the first place.

Re: Mediterranean Diet

It has to be doesn't it; it doesn't make sense for so much emphasis to be placed on one thing.

I've been fortunate enough (in the past) to have private medical treatment and they also offer wine with a meal (wasted on me as I don't drink).

There is a lot of truth in that. I'm not wholly sold on the sugar thing though. I ate lots of sugar as a child (sweets, my mum's home made pop, puddings were also very sugary - even the mint sauce she made had sugar in it!) and I think of all the old-fashined puddings: jam roly-poly, spotted dick with syrup, treacle tart, every fruit pie had a liberal sprinkling of sugar on top of the pastry and yet we have an abundance of healthy pensioners who didn't die early. I know a lot of that can be put down to medical intervention but if sugar was the main culprit, wouldn't that have been acknowledged before now? I think they just think up new bogeymen to throw at us and then sit back to wait and see what happens!