Yesterday as I began writing this review I came across an article headline titled, "Mediterranean diet better than statins for tackling heart disease." I thought it was interesting and timely as we've known the Mediterranean diet (MD) to be heart-healthy for some time now, however in this study it was demonstrated to be very effective in preventing cardiovascular death in people with existing heart disease. The more likely the people adhered to a Mediterranean diet, the less likely they were to die. I think a major takeaway is not that medications aren't important, because they most certainly are, but it also underlines just how important your diet can be!
The book is organized into two parts. The first part (chapters 1 & 2) provides general background information on what the MD is and why it is good for you. It provides a basic, easy to understand, instruction manual for how to be successful in incorporating the MD into your everyday life. It gives you a concise, but thorough, how-to approach to plan your week, and most importantly, the ingredients that your pantry should have on hand at all times. That can't be understated because the whole idea of this book is to make the MD a lifestyle, not just a recipe book to make a Mediterranean dish from time to time. I really like her approach to outlining this as it is not information overload and doesn't take long to read.
The second part of the book is all recipes. They range from breakfast to lunch to dinner, and even includes desserts.
I had a chance to make quite a few of the recipes, and each one I found to be easy to understand, easy to prepare, and best of all...delicious! I found myself buying things from the store that I've walked by numerous occasions and wondered "what would you ever make with that?" Take, for example, fennel. I made the Fennel Wild Rice recipe and this is now one of my favorite rice dishes. It was SO good and I can't believe I've never had anything like it before. I'm usually more of a meat eater and because my wife is a vegetarian, we usually end up preparing separate meals. She is also an incredibly picky eater. I made the Ratatouille recipe though and not only did she love it, but so did I. I was lucky enough to be able to use several of the ingredients from my garden which I also got a certain amount of satisfaction from. The book does have plenty of recipes with meat so you don't have to worry about completely cutting that out of your diet to be healthy.
I did find that some of the recipe prep times took me a little bit longer than stated in the book, however I'm not as well-practiced in the kitchen as I should be. But I actually found it fun to be in the kitchen with my wife and daughter making meals from scratch. Another thing to note is that the book is aimed around cooking for a family of four, but you can always make more or less as you desire.
If you are looking for a comprehensive, heart-healthy, diet plan, I think you will find this book to be excellent. Keep it in your kitchen and make it a habit to use it as a guide for every meal. Before you know it, you'll get the hang of it and will be second-nature. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that all fat is bad and eating healthy means eating cardboard. It is just not true. Fad diets come and go but the Mediterranean diet is actually scientifically studied and something that you can stick with....and best of all, delicious!
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