Page 14 - The Mediterranean Refresh

From that point forward, healthy cooking became the key to unlocking
my best possible life. After reading about the problems caused by our typical
diet, I became obsessed. Surely, the longevity of a particular country indi-
cates how good its overall diet is, so I started researching different cultures.
Which ones had the lowest rates of heart disease, Alzheimer’s and Parkin-
son’s? Where were the people naturally lean and energetic?
During my hunt I discovered dozens of cultures where people have lon-
ger lives and less illness. It’s true: our diets affect our lives more than we care
to admit.
But there was a problem. So many of these “healthy” diets were based on
restrictive eating—eating small amounts of bland, tasteless food. As a recipe
developer, I consider delicious food an essential part of life.
If you told me I’d live longer if I chose not to be a mother, I would tell
you to get lost. A short life full of joy is better than a long one. While diet
may be a less extreme example than having children, the same philosophy
remains true. I need to eat delicious food. I’d rather die than be stuck with
bland, tasteless food all my life. It’s just part of my soul.
That’s when I stumbled on the Mediterranean Diet. My research indi-
cated that it was in fact one of the best choices in the world based on

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INTRODUCTION 13