The Traditional Greek Diet

You may have heard this diet called, "The Ancient Greek Diet", this diet happens to be very old and traditional. Some Greeks have now modernized the old traditional diet and replaced it with the  Westernized Greek Diet. These two diets aren't the same and shouldn't be mistaken. If you want to learn more about the western diet, click "Westernized Greek Diet".

Can you guess which one is the Ancient Greek Diet? I thought so!

Ancient or Traditional Greek Diet

Westernized Greek Diet

Enough with the Westernized Greek Diet, lets learn about the Ancient Greek Diet. The Ancient Greek diet mainly consists of:

• Fruits and Vegetables
• Sea Food
• Olive Oil
• Hearty Grains
• Healthy Fats

Fruits and Vegetables:

Just like Traditional Korean Diet, this diet also eats many vegetables. Instead of dessert, this diet eats a small serving of fresh fruit.

Sea Food:

Just like The Traditional Japanese Diet, this diet also eats many sea foods. Sea Foods contain Omega 3 reduces the risk of heart problems.

Olive Oil:

The Traditional Greeks also substitute canola oil just like The Traditional Japanese Diet, for healthier oils such as olive oil.

Hearty Grains:

These grains are way healthier then refined grains.

Healthy Fats:

Healthy fats are fats like olive oil avocados, nuts, sunflower seed oil, etc.

The Traditional Greek Diet fights against heart disease! Notice the:

The Traditional Japanese Diet

Traditional Korean Diet

The Traditional Greek Diet

all have something in common and happen to be the three healthiest diets. Your diet effects your health and your life style.

-My next post will be on the difference between an Industrial Farms and Poly Faced Farm-

The Traditional Korean Diet

Koreans are not only heathier and skinnier than Americans but they are also are 3 time less obese than Americans because of their diet! That's crazy! Who would have guessed?!
There diet mainly consists of:

• Rice
• Vegetables
• Soy
• Kimchi
• Probiotics

Rice:

Korean's basic food consists of rice! Americans say hello but Koreans will say, "Have you eaten your rice today?" as their hello. That tells you how much they love and eat rice!

Vegetables:
Vegetables have many benefits and Koreans often ferment their vegetables (kimchi).

Soy:

Just like the Traditional Japanese Diet, Koreans also eat soy. Soy contains protein and little fat.


Kimchi:
Kimchi is another name for fermented vegetables.


Probiotics:
Probiotics are found in food such as kimchi (fermented vegetables), yogurt, sauerkraut, pickles, kefir, and basically anything fermented.


Koreans also steam or boil their food as a replacement for frying. Steaming or boiling happens to be a healthier option.

-My next post will be on another healthy diet, The Greek Diet-

The Traditional Japenese Diet

Why do we always see old Japanese people that are perfectly healthy?
Did you know the Japanese live older then any other nation?
Why is this?
This is because of their traditional diet. You would be surprised on how much a diet can effect your health.

Now you might be asking, "What does this miracle diet consist of?"
This TRADITONAL Japanese diet consists:

• low cholesterol
• very little red meat
• almost no food that contains saturated fat
• weeds from the sea (seaweed)
• Omega 3
• Soy

Slow down- what are these???

Cholesterol:

Cholesterol is mainly found in fried or fatty foods. The Traditional Japanese diet has a low cholesterol intake, meaning they don't eat many fatty or fried foods.

Red Meat:

Red meat is mainly found in the Western Diet and is meat such as bacon, steak and hamburger. This diet eats these meats sparingly.

Saturated Fat: This fat is mainly found in red meat. If you avoid red meats, you can avoid saturated fats.

Weeds from the Sea:

The Traditional Japanese eat quite a bit of seaweed. Seaweed contains protein, vitamin A, vitamin C and also vitamin B2.

Omega 3:Omega 3 comes from most sea food such as fish. This Omega 3 prevents bad heart conditions.

Soy:

Soy contains protein and has little fat.

This Traditional Diet substitutes canola oil (a oil that is horrible for our health) and replaces it with an oil such as coconut oil, olive oil, or fish oil. You would be surprised on how your health can change by switching to this diet.

The Japanese also only eat until they are 80% full. What does this mean?

You can tell if you are eating until you are 80% full when you are full but COULD eat another piece. If you are ever faced with the COULD, just say no. You are full and that's that.

If you only eat until you are 80%, you will live longer. How cool is that?!

-my next post will be on the Traditional South Korean Diet-

GMO's

What are GMO's? They are Genetically Modified Organisms. Google's definition states,

"Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) can be defined as organisms (i.e. plants, animals or microorganisms) in which the genetic material (DNA) has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally by mating and/or natural recombination."

They are man made organisms that don't occur naturally. In the United States of America, the food processors are not restrained to tell us if their food they are selling has GMO's. Any other country has too. Therefore, they must be bad for us if other countries are restrained to have that information on the label.

 There are both pro's and con's to GMO's.

Pro's:

• They make the food look more appealing.
• They help the food better fight off diseases to keep it from rotting when it goes long distances from someone far away to your local grocery store. Also, for delivering food on humanitarian trips.
• Bigger yields.
• Companies can have legal protection over these GM seeds which gives them the legal rights to sell them.

Con's:

• GMO's can and do adversely affect open pollinated crop nearby.
• They are not natural; man made.
• They cause environmental damage.
• GMO food can prevent significant allergy risk.
• There aren't real long term testing to detect possible problems. Yikes!
• The biggest GMO company, Monsanto, has been suing farmers who have their fields "infected" with Monsanto seeds. 
• GMO seed makers require farmers to buy from them each year. This prevents the farmers from using organic seeds.

A girl in my class' dad is allergic to store bought milk but not raw milk. Do you think GMO's have been added to our milk? Comment your thoughts please!

GMO's can be added to the food chain cycle and create a big impact. (into seeds, animals, etc.)
Some people wonder if bees are dying from GMO seeds that turn into plants and pollen. I don't know for certain but there is a possibility. Scary!

- My next post will be on the Traditional Japanese Diet, one out of three of the healthiest diets - 

 

Calories

What is calorie? In scientific terms, it is the energy needed to raise the temperature1 gram of water through 1 Celsius. That's not much help. In other words, calories are like fuel. Without calories, our cells would die and then eventually we would die.

Food breaks down into 3 main macronutrients:

1.  Carbohydrates (carbs)
2. Proteins
3. Fats

1 gram of protein = 4 calories
1 gram carbs = 4 calories
1 gram fat = 9 calories

This doesn't mean we should go dive into fats. The calories our bodies don't use will turn into stored energy, or as you may know it as fat in your body. We need to eat as many calories as our body burns. If you eat 2500 calories that day, you will need to burn 2500 calories that day so your body doesn't store too much fat.

 

You may of also heard of empty calories. Empty calories have no nutrition, so therefore they have no energy in them. Sugar, for an example, is an empty calorie because it has no nutrition. It may boost you for 10 sec. but in the long run, you wont have any more energy.

 

Have a basic idea?

 

 

-My next post will be about GMOs-



 

What causes food to spoil? How can I prevent spoilage?

In my previous post, http://thehealthdictionary.blogspot.com/2014/11/preservatives.html , I talked about preservatives. Although a sign of real food is decay, spoiling can be scary once started.

Food spoilage spreads quickly once it has began. Microscopic organisms eat the food we have no longer given attention to, meaning if it is old. The microscopic bacteria is called spoilage bacteria. It multiplies when there is moisture warm climate (humid), direct sun light, and nutrition. This bacteria causes bad smells and rotten looks. Although the food may look fine, there maybe a pathogenic bacteria in the spoilage and can be very dangerous. Nothing can preserve food forever but there are ways to help it stay good without using preservatives.

We need to store our food in the proper storage. Spoiling often begins when the food is being improperly stored. When an item of food begins to spoil, it can contaminate everything else with it. We need to be aware of what stage of spoiling our food is in.

Tips:

Bacteria has a hard time growing in colder than 40 F. It can still spoil so we still need to be aware!

Bacteria needs moisture to grow. If we dehydrate our food, the moister is taken out and spoiling doesn't occur as fast.

Canning also preserves food longer, but we need to make sure our food is boiled at the right time. If we don't boil it long enough, is can grow a deadly bacteria called Botulism. Scary!

 

-My next post will be on calories-

Preservatives

Preservatives. Google's definition states ,"a substance used to preserve foodstuff, wood, or other materials against decay." A sign of real food is decay.

In my Science class, we all did an experiment. We had to choose a food that contains preservatives and an organic food. Our question was, "Which food would decay faster?" Like you probably would have guessed, the food that had preservatives to preserve the food, lasted longer.

Here is a picture of my experiment. On the left, there is a piece of homemade sourdough bread. On the right, there is a picture of store bought bread. The experiment ended a few months ago but here is a picture I took 1-2 weeks ago. These pieces of bread in this photo are both 2-3 months old! The store bought bread was filled with preservatives so it just turned hard. Pretty gross huh?



In one of my previous posts, I talked about why the western diet is so bad. see:  http://thehealthdictionary.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-western-diet.html It is filled with preservatives which causes Alzheimer's disease and many more diseases, emotional eating, etc.

I found this cool guide. See at: http://naturallysavvy.com/eat/7-scary-food-additives-to-avoid

In this guide, the pink words tell you what the preservatives do to your body.

This is a pretty bold question. Based on the information that we learned from the food guide by Naturally Savvy, I think not!

-My next post will be based around the question, "What causes food to spoil?"-