"Nordic diet" superior to Mediterranean

Telegraph.co.uk: "Olive oil, vegetables, citrus fruit and unrefined cereals from the Mediterranean may be replaced in slimmers' shopping baskets by Scandinavian rapeseed oil, elk and berries such as cowberries and cloudberries."
The Mediterranean diet – one of the leading eating plans for the past 20 years – is facing competition from the "Nordic diet", which, scientists are finding, could be significantly healthier. [. . .]

Trina Hahnemann, a Danish chef who recently published The Scandinavian Cookbook, added that in many parts of Scandinavia and Britain, traditional diets had been abandoned in favour of foods from Italy and Spain.

She said: "I think that people have lost their food culture and forgotten about how foods suited to northern climates can be healthy.

"In Britain you have a lot of kale, but almost no one realises that you can eat it raw like lettuce and it is very nutritious."

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

history is only biography.

Anonymous said...

Here is an interesting article about Germans and meat consumption:

http://www.campaignforliberty.com/wire.php?view=2048

I read in a book long ago (before any of the politically correct stuff started being espoused) that Germans eat too many rich foods like butter, cheese, and lots of meat. I think I remember reading that Germans have a very high rate of heart disease.

Having been to Germany various times, I can attest they do eat a lot of rich foods, but my family from Germany does not have a history of any problems; however, I choose to be vegetarian for personal reasons, not really for health reasons.

I think that quite a few of these things promoted are nothing but food fads -- here today, gone tomorrow, like the Atkins Diet for example. The healthiest way to eat is simply variety -- simply add variety to one's diet rather than the same foods every day. All of these fads are nonsense. And most people follow them because they cannot think for themselves.

In the end, death comes for everyone and I think that it's just a part of nature and that's just the way it is because everyone eventually dies of something. People should learn to stop fearing death so much and become more spiritual in nature, then maybe they will also not be so obsessed with diets and plastic surgery and all the other nonsense out there.

Anonymous said...

Your title is actually dishonest (no surprise there). The article your link leads to does not say the "Nordic diet" is "superior" to the "Mediterranean diet." What it actually says is that foods indigenous to Northern Europe are being shown to be just as beneficial to human health as foods found in Southern Europe.

While rapeseed oil may contain more Omega-3s than olive oil both oils contain other elements, the effects on human health at this time still being largely unknown. I might also add that places where large amounts of rapeseed are grown tend to be detrimental to the health of asthma and hay fever sufferers.

The conclusion of the researchers is that Northern Europeans should avail themselves of these foods since they are easier for them to grow than foods normally found in a warmer climate. This sounds logical.

The whole idea of using foodstuffs to try to "prove" ethnic superiority is pretty stupid, even for you.

n/a said...

Wendy,

There's a good case (made by Gary Taubes in Good Calories, Bad Calories, among others) that calls for reduced consumption of meat/fat/cholesterol have generally been rooted in ideology or pursuit of personal gain rather than dispassionate evaluation of medical evidence, and the article you link fits squarely within that tradition (though, in this case, at least the ideological grounding is admitted up front, the supposed effects on human health being mentioned almost as an afterthought).

"People should learn to stop fearing death so much "

Not bad advice in general, but eating correctly is not necessarily simply a matter of wanting to forestall death. At minimum, diet is worthy of attention for the more immediate effects it can have on personal functioning (e.g., energy level and clearness of thought).


humorless punk,

The headline obviously mocks Medophiles, who have been proudly and credulously relaying press accounts on the wonders of the "Mediterranean diet" for years. That said, the word "superior" is taken directly from the article, and I personally have no doubt meat- and fish-based diets are superior to grain-based diets (in terms of health and performance outcomes).

ben tillman said...

There's a good case (made by Gary Taubes in Good Calories, Bad Calories, among others) that calls for reduced consumption of meat/fat/cholesterol have generally been rooted in ideology or pursuit of personal gain rather than dispassionate evaluation of medical evidence....Yes, the anti-fat and anti-cholesterol claims seemed intuitively suspect, and Taubes's book is well worth reading.

Changing the subject, I can't stress enough how valuable herring is in the diet, especially for young children and brain development.

Anonymous said...

I would think that a well balanced diet includes many foods and foods of diverse origins. Most European foods are actually foreign in origin. Plants like Wheat, Barley, Oats, Potatoes and many more, all food animals, chickens, turkeys, goats, sheep, beef cattle, dairy cattle all are foreign. Some from the Americas like Maize, Potatoes and Tomatoes, a lot from the Middle East, most cereals and food animals. Restricting diet to foods native to you geography would see you starve in no time. Good luck.