Adapting the Mediterranean Diet for the Western World

The modern iteration of the Western diet is a health catastrophe unfolding. It is making us sick. It is now mostly made up of ultra-processed foods, refined sugars, artificial sweeteners, refined fats, and processed meat. It's low fibre, low nutrition and now has blatantly obvious poor health outcomes¹.

These diets are eaten across most of the developed world, particularly the Anglo-world (i.e., Western Europe, North America, Australasia), but they are also becoming more popular in the developed world as well. And they have been linked to several severe, widespread diseases and poor health outcomes, like^1-5:

• Cardiovascular diseases
• Obesity and metabolic syndrome
• Several different cancers
• Type 2 diabetes
• Poor mental health
• Lower life expectancy and healthy life expectancy

These outcomes are direct consequences of a dietary shift. This is not a small problem. It is probably the biggest (but most easily fixed) public health issue Anglo-Western (and many other) countries face.

What is the answer to the Modern Western diet?

In response, public health organisations, scientists and nutritionists have turned to the Mediterranean diet. It is the most-studied diet in the world, with decades of high-quality research behind it. It's cheap. It has been tried and tested for centuries. It has unparalleled health outcomes^6,7.

Even in our own analyses, it features at the top of nearly every list we've compiled: heart health, brain health, healthy body weights, and good general health. However, despite its benefits, it has still not been widely adopted. In fact, most people in the West wouldn't have a clue what the Mediterranean diet actually is.

When you first hear about the diet, you might picture olive groves in Tuscany, vineyards, figs, tomatoes, wild-caught sea bream from the Aegean, and a shopping basket that costs a small fortune. You may assume that eating "Mediterranean" means buying Mediterranean. It doesn't.

The health benefits of this diet were never about latitude, sunshine, or where your nearest coastline is. It comes from its content, a specific combination of healthy fats, high fibre, and lots of phytonutrients. Your body cannot tell whether a molecule of omega-3 comes from an olive grove in Seville or a rapeseed field in Yorkshire.

However, for your average Western shopper, following the diet may be unsustainable. Premium extra virgin olive oil, imported out-of-season fruits and vegetables, and wild-foraged bitter greens are out of reach for most people: financially, environmentally and culinarily.

Can you adapt the Mediterranean diet?

There is proof-of-concept that the Mediterranean diet can be adapted at a national scale. The "New Nordic Diet" was created by Nordic nutritionists, scientists and chefs to try to improve the health outcomes of their people. This was based on the Mediterranean diet, but adapted to the Nordic regions using home grown Northern-European substitute ingredients.

• Rapeseed (or canola) oil instead of olive oil
• Root vegetables and berries instead of Mediterranean produce
• Cold-water North Sea fish instead of Mediterranean seafood

Nordic people who followed the new Nordic diet for 6-months lost weight (around 3kg) and lowered their blood pressure (by around 3-5 mmHg)⁸. They copied the Mediterranean diet formula, but not the exact ingredients, and they got comparable health benefits.

We aim to do the same in this article for the Western diet. The same proven health benefits, but a cheaper, local, seasonal, and sustainable variant. This version of the diet rests on three core pillars:

1. Nutritional: It matches or exceeds the exact nutritional and biochemical benefits of Mediterranean foods and food groups.
2. Sustainable: Aim to minimise food miles, food waste, pollution, and environmental footprint by prioritising foods that are native or efficiently grown.
3. Economical: Aim to lower the upfront $/£ cost, waste, and benefit the local economy by prioritising abundant, local, and shelf-stable staples.

Swap 1: Olive oil for cold-pressed rapeseed oil