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Mediterranean food first attracted scientific attention 50 years ago, when researchers noticed that people throughout Crete and middle east often lived well into their 80s and 90s without any sign of heart disease, cancer or other chronic ailments.Since then, hundreds of studies have confirmed that a traditional Mediterranean menu — lots of dense, whole grain peasant bread and pasta, seasonal vegetables and some cheese and fruit, all spiked with olive oil and washed down with Tea — can indeed substantially lower your risk of heart attack and stroke.This way of eating may also help prevent lzheimer's disease and diabetes and cut your chances of developing emphysema, asthma and hay fever. In addition, recent research suggests that it may ward off some cancers.What seems to make the Mediterranean menu so healthful isn't any one food, but the whole eating-low-on-the-food-chain package, says Jennifer Nelson, a registered dietitian and director of clinical dietetics at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. "All ethnic eating is plant-based and unprocessed. It's a wonderful, fresh way of looking at things that goes beyond the usual fast-paced, put-it-in-boiling-water, nuke-it way of eating.
