Caesar Salad, Anyone? (Ides of March Edition!)

The Ides of March is upon us, and furthermore, it’s Wildcard Wednesday here at 10almonds, so we’re going to look at what the famous “Mediterranean diet” is—and isn’t! In today’s edition:

• The ultimate awareness test—we’ll bet you can’t pass it first time, but it will open your eyes!

• The Mediterranean Diet

  • What it does (so many benefits)

  • Where it came from (beyond, obviously, the Mediterranean)

  • What it actually is (and isn’t)

  • How to super-power it even further!

• The Daily Stoic—for getting more out of life, day by day

👀 WATCH AND LEARN

The Ultimate Awareness Test

This short (1:54) video will test your awareness. That’s all!

Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

🍅 MAIN FEATURE

The Mediterranean Diet: What Is It Good For?

More to the point: what isn’t it good for?

• It’s been found to reduce all-cause mortality, which is about the best thing one can say of any diet.

• It’s especially good for heart health and against cancer.

• It’s particularly recommended for the prevention or management of diabetes.

• It’s also been found, societally, to reduce general healthcare costs—basically, people get sick less and so have fewer healthcare costs.

What brought it to the attention of the world’s scientific community?

Back in the 1950s, physiologist Ancel Keys wondered why poor people in Italian villages were healthier than wealthy New Yorkers. Upon undertaking studies, he narrowed it down to the Mediterranean diet—something he'd then take on as a public health cause for the rest of his career.

Keys himself lived to the ripe old age of 100, by the way.

When we say "Mediterranean Diet", what image comes to mind?

We're willing to bet that tomatoes feature (great source of lycopene, by the way), but what else?

• Salads, perhaps? Vegetables, olives? Olive oil, yea or nay?

• Bread? Pasta? Prosciutto, salami? Cheese?

• Pizza but only if it's Romana style, not Chicago?

• Sautéed liver, with some fava beans and a nice Chianti?

In reality, the diet is based on what was historically eaten specifically by Italian peasants. If the word "peasants" conjures an image of medieval paupers in smocks and cowls, and that's not necessarily wrong, further back historically... but the relevant part here is that they were people who lived and worked in the countryside.

They didn't have money for meat, which was expensive, nor the industrial setting for refined grain products to be affordable. They didn't have big monocrops either, which meant no canola oil, for example... Olives produce much more easily extractable oil per plant, so olive oil was easier to get. Nor, of course, did they have the money (or infrastructure) for much in the way of imports.

So what foods are part of "the" Mediterranean Diet?

• Fruits. These would be fruits grown locally, but no need to sweat that, dietwise. It's hard to go wrong with fruit.

• Tomatoes yes. So many tomatoes. (Knowledge is knowing tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad)

• Non-starchy vegetables (e.g. eggplant yes, potatoes no)

• Greens (spinach, kale, lettuce, all those sorts of things)

• Beans and other legumes (whatever was grown nearby)

• Whole grain products in moderation (wholegrain bread, wholewheat pasta)

• Olives and olive oil. Special category, single largest source of fat in the Mediterranean diet, but don't overdo it.

• Dairy products in moderation (usually hard cheeses, as these keep well)

• Fish, in moderation. Typically grilled, baked, steamed even. Not fried.

• Other meats as a rarer luxury in considerable moderation. There's more than one reason prosciutto is so thinly sliced!

Want to super-power this already super diet?

Try: A Pesco-Mediterranean Diet With Intermittent Fasting: JACC Review Topic of the Week

📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW

The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living - by Ryan Holiday & Stephen Hanselman

What's this, a philosophy book in a health and productivity newsletter? Well, look at it this way: Aristotle basically wrote the "How To Win Friends And Influence People" of his day, and Plato before him wrote a book about management.

In this (chiefly modern!) book, we see what the later Stoic philosophers had to say about getting the most out of life—which is also what we're about, here at 10almonds!

We tend to use the word "stoic" in modern English to refer to a person who is resolute in the face of hardship. The traditional meaning does encompass that, but also means a lot more: a whole, rounded, philosophy of life.

Philosophy in general is not an easy thing into which to "dip one's toe". No matter where we try to start, it seems, it turns out there were a thousand other things we needed to read first!

This book really gets around that. The format is:

• There's a theme for each month

• Each month has one lesson per day

• Each daily lesson starts with some words from a renowned stoic philosopher, and then provides commentary on such

• The commentary provides a jumping-off point and serves as a prompt to actually, genuinely, reflect and apply the ideas.

Unlike a lot of "a year of..." day-by-day books, this is not light reading, by the way, and you are getting a weighty tome for your money.

But, the page-length daily lessons are indeed digestible—which, again, is what we like at 10almonds!

Get your copy of The Daily Stoic at Amazon today!

Wishing you a glorious mid-march and year ahead,

The 10almonds Team