Mediterranean Diet: Live Longer, Live Better, Live In Community

Dear Tig,

Thanks for your email.

I agree with you. The Mediterranean diet is best!

Not only healthy but delicious. 

And, thanks to liberal amounts of red wine, it avoids the neo-puritanism that besets many "moderns" who tend toward obsession and fetishism.

"NPR: For Mind And Body: Study Finds Mediterranean Diet Boosts Both" 

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/11/for-mind-and-body-study-finds.html

That said, humankind's most seductive (and arguably most dangerous) temptation is "perfection" - at least when viewed through a "mathematical/geometrical" lens. 

"Is Perfectionism A Curse? Paul Ryan Tells The Truth"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/09/paul-ryan-tells-truth.html

Although it is optimum to participate in any "locale-based" diet while living in the corresponding locale, great good arises from imperfect approximations.

A very healthy approximation of the Mediterranean diet can be had by using Italian pasta, fresh fruits and vegetables (organically produced if one wishes), fish, nuts, whole grains, limited amounts of animal fat and reliance on extra virgin olive oil and red wine.

The problem with perfection is that its innate unattainability (under most circumstances) prevents us -- out of frustration with our inability to be perfect -- from actually achieving the good that IS within our grasp.

As you probably know, the quotation I most frequently cite is Thomas Merton's passage on perfection: 

"The terrible thing about our time is precisely the ease with which theories can be put into practice.  The more perfect, the more idealistic the theories, the more dreadful is their realization.  We are at last beginning to rediscover what perhaps men knew better in very ancient times, in primitive times before utopias were thought of: that liberty is bound up with imperfection, and that limitations, imperfections, errors are not only unavoidable but also salutary. The best is not the ideal.  Where what is theoretically best is imposed on everyone as the norm, then there is no longer any room even to be good.  The best, imposed as a norm, becomes evil.”  

More Merton Quotes

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/04/merton-best-imposed-as-norm-becomes.html

"The best, imposed as a norm, becomes evil."

It is a "terrible thing."

Mercy and (moderate) Indulgence are fraternal twins. 

Love

Alan

PS An overlooked but essential component of the Mediterranean diet is that it requires us to live in vital community.


PPS To repeat the comment made by my Duke pathologist friend: "If humankind adopted a Mediterranean diet, the health benefits would be more significant than every drug in the pharmacopoeia with the exception of insulin and antibiotics." (BTW... Insulin was first synthesized at the Univeristy of Toronto. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/03/toronto-general-has-most-sophisticated.html  Compendium of Canada Posts: http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/03/canadian-physician-makes-anti-obamacare.html)

Mediterranean Diet

The Sacrament of The Table 

On Sun, May 18, 2014 at 2:18 PM, NH wrote:

Just spoke w/ Paola. I am soooo homesick for Italy. She told me that Valeria is in Rome for a few days and had called her from Piazza Navona (9 hrs later there) and said that there was music in the Piazza and it was a beautiful spring evening and the Piazza was so beautiful etc. and that they had all eaten outside.

Apropos our conversation of last night, Italy doesn't even accept a lot of foods from US as they don't meet their standards. It is impossible to eat the authentic Mediterranean diet in the US even if you copy the recipe and foods, as their meet and veggies etc are different, oh well, I've tried. Italy has the lowest rate of cardiovascular disease than any other western industrialized nation and statistically, people live the longest in Umbria. Sandro's father was 95 when he died- a strict Med diet w/ red wine w/ every meal.

Love,

Tig