Estes 1
Page 2 of 7
Page 2 of 7
Estes 1
Megan Estes
Mrs. Laura Houchens
English 100-367
9 April 2018
Benefits of the Mediterranean Diet
As explained by most dictionaries and shown by the media, the use of the term “diet” is frequently associated with specific food regimes, usually with the promise of some sort of weight loss. The Mediterranean diet, in particular, has several benefits other than just weight loss. Most people are only focused on losing weight and they don’t think about the negative impacts that some of those weight loss diets have on them. So many people in America quit a diet after a week or so because they aren’t seeing any immediate results, however; most healthy diets, such as the Mediterranean diet, aren’t going to give them immediate results, because they are working at a healthy pace that is safe for the individual’s body regulation. Despite the several diets, year after year, that claim to be the healthiest and best way to lose weight, the Mediterranean diet has consistently proven to be one of the most healthful eating styles.
One of the most common diets used today is the low-fat diet. Low-fat diets are diets that limit the grams of fat a person is allowed to eat during the day. This way of dieting can show short-term weight loss effects; however, it may not be the healthiest way or most successful way of losing weight in the long-term. While weight loss can be important, even more importance should be put on the choices that are being made to ensure the weight being lost is being done so in a healthy manner. Although fats have been given a bad reputation, there are natural fats, such as saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fats (especially omega-3s) that have crucial benefits for a long healthy life (Blake). According to Michael Pollan’s food rule number nine, “Avoid food products with the wordoid ‘lite’ or the terms ‘low-fat’ or ‘nonfat’ in their names”, in his book Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual,
We’ve gotten fat on low-fat products. Why? Because removing the fat from foods doesn’t necessarily make them not fattening. Carbohydrates can also make you fat, and many low- and nonfat foods boost the sugars to make up for the loss of flavor. Also, by demonizing one nutrient--fat--we inevitably give a free pass to another, supposedly ‘good,’ nutrient--carbohydrates in this case--and then proceed to eat too much of that instead. Since the low-fat campaign began in the late 1970s, Americans actually have been eating more than 500 additional calories per day, most of them in the form of refined carbohydrates like sugar (21).
Basically, his point is that people would be better off eating regular fats in some type of moderation than eating a ton of low-fat foods full of salts and sugars. Since fat consists of nine calories per gram while carbohydrates consist of four, people may be able to eat more without consuming more calories by cutting back on fatty foods and eating more that are full of carbohydrates (Blak...
