A A ten inches dish, one of the small plates

Fifty years ago, Dr. Francisco Grande Covián, one of the Spanish researchers that worked with Dr. Ancel Keys on the Mediterranean Diet, started using one of his simplest but most valuable motto: “You can eat everything but in small plates ”.

Years ago, this expression should have been changed. In the last decades here have appeared many products that are sold as food and should be avoided at all. Nevertheless and considering this fact, the phrase continue being valid but for real and genuine food. “Eat what your grandmother considered food” (Michael Polland). Mine told me when I was I child that butter was healthier than margarines. And she didn’t know anything about “trans fats”. Nobody did. The world was starting being cheated, and health put in risk, once more with the hydrogenated oils .

The Mediterranean Diet recommends a varied nutrition. It is the simplest way to get all the nutrients we need in a natural way. The modern Mediterranean Diet goes further and bans any unnatural and industrially processed products. As Michael Pollan says, only is food what your grandmother would have considered food.

But Mediterranean Diet also recommends eating small portions. The amount you should eat depends on the calories expenses you have had. Mediterranean Diet followers learn how to interpret the signals that the body sends to them. It is a matter of routine and years.

Small Plates movement

Cornell University is promoting The Small Plate Movement, an initiative that advice switching from a traditional 12 inches plate to a smaller 10 inches one. It would deal to a reduction of food intake and calories. This is a measure that has been proved that works. The Small Plate Movement tends to operate in two fields. One of them is the family environment. The second one but more difficult is in Restaurants. About this point, marketing specialists have contradictory opinions about this issue. It could be seen by customers as a simple reduction of operating costs, and it could damage the image and the competitiveness of the establishment. A solution to this could be offering smaller portions at a reduced price.

Nevertheless, the small plates movement is being implemented and for different reasons at the hotel and cruises buffets. Considering that customers can repeat as many times as they wish, it does not represent any problem. But it is not the best way to lose weight. Go for the small plates!

January 7, 2012

Two Mediterranean ladies eating an ice-cream

Traditional diet is being abandoned.

Every time you read, watch or just hear a food advertisement, you can see beautiful, slim, young and healthy people involved in them. You are offered images of a very pretty and athletic girl enjoying an ice-cream (generally full of unhealthy components as trans fats), or a famous soccer or tennis player eating chips or something similar.

The reality is other. Pretty, athletic, famous slim people do not eat normally those things. I would say that they even don’t do that to make the advertisement. Actually, I saw one spitting what she had bitten seconds after the video was finished.

You have to pay attention to real people who consume this stuff. Try to observe them as much as you can. I assure you that in a few weeks you will be removed your subliminal add-created addiction.

Real people

Don’t become a couch potato! Eating in front of the television makes you eat more

An average American citizen spends approximately between eight and nine hours a day in front of the television screen. Supposing he or she sleeps seven hours, this means an unacceptable daily amount of 15 hours of inactivity. Moreover, if the task that this citizen develops is also sedentary, he or she will be in a very dangerous and risky health situation.

Eating in front of the television makes you eat more. You pay more attention to the images and less to the food. And when you finish you serving, you normally go back to the fridge to get more food, as these combine actions are psychologically rewarding. Later, you will look for some sweets, chocolate or anything you can chew or lick. And the result will be that you’ll have double the calories intake that you should have done. And you become a couch potato.

So, if you want to control your weight, do not link TV and meals. Choose the programs you really want or need to watch, and you will see that total weekly time will not surpass six or seven hours. Don’t stay as a stupid in front of the device, swallowing a daily average of one and a half hours of advertisements, most of them for food and most of them promoting inadequate substances for your health. It has been proven that exposure to food cues promotes consumption and obesity not only in children but in adults as well.