We've long heard that the Mediterranean Diet is how all of us should eat. The diet, inspired by the coastal cuisine of such countries as Greece, Italy and southern France, is characterized by its abundant portions of fruits and vegetables, frequent meals of fish and poultry, use of olive oil and spices for seasoning, and red wine in moderation. Red meat and butter are limited, and grains are mostly whole. The diet has been studied for its effects on heart disease, weight loss, cancer, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. And it's arguably a more pleasurable way of eating than, say, the strict Paleo and Ketogenic diets, or the faddish but not necessarily effective low-carbohydrate diet.

But it won't work if you're poor.

That's the latest finding from a team of Italian researchers, who studied 18,000 men and women over a four-year period. They found that the Mediterranean Diet reduced the risk of heart disease by 15 percent - but only for people who made more than approximately $46,000 a year. There were no observed cardiovascular benefits for people who made less than that amount.

The study, which was published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, also found that highly educated people - who may be likely to have higher incomes - did better on the diet, in part because they selected a wider variety of vegetables and were more likely to eat whole grains. The more varied a person's diet is, the more types of nutrients they consume. Highly educated participants were also more likely to buy organic food.

The study "found that higher-SES subjects tend to consume more organic vegetables which can contain higher concentrations of antioxidants, lower concentrations of cadmium and a lower incidence of pesticide residues, as compared with conventionally grown foods. We might then speculate that the quality of the bundle of foods that make up the MD actually differs across SES."

So, it doesn't just matter that you adhere to the tenets of the Mediterranean Diet - it matters what kind of foods you pick within its framework, how that food was grown and how you prepare it. The findings will inevitably contribute to the ongoing discussion of food inequality, or how access to healthful food is a tenet of social justice.

We have long known that poorer Americans lack access to nutritious food and full-service grocery stores. They are more likely to rely on processed or fast foods. One recent study found that this nutritional gap is widening. "Price is a major determinant of food choice, and healthful foods generally cost more than unhealthful foods in the United States," that study said. It also found a link between education and healthy eating, suggesting that programs to teach low-socioeconomic status people how to choose and prepare cheap healthy meals - and the benefits they can derive from such choices - are important.

And that's what the Italian research team's takeaway is. "These results support the need to adopt more effective strategies aiming to reduce socioeconomic disparities in health, not only by promoting the adoption of healthy eating patterns but also by facilitating access to foods with higher nutritional values," they wrote.

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The Mediterranean diet works but not if you're poor, a study finds - Chicago Tribune

by Brittany Ford, FOX 11 News

A look at one of the items on the menu when Packers players stay at St. Norbert College for training camp. (WLUK/Mike Raasch)

DE PERE (WLUK) -- If you're a Packers player, your diet is just as important as your performance.

During training camp, chefs at St. Norbert make sure the players are served a variety of tasty, and nutritious meals.

In the Michels Ballroom, at St. Norbert College, Packers players eat their meals.

St. Norbert Chef T.W. Stanciu has been cooking at training camp for 13 years.

As the players stay on campus, the university provides both a snack, and dinner.

FOX 11 got a sneak peek at one of the menu items.

T.W. says during the players stay there is usually a rotating menu.

"We'll repeat most of the items, but I'll watch what they eat, if they like it we'll put it on," said T.W. Stanciu.

He says over the years, they have taken a healthier approach to the menu, hints the kale in this burger.

"We like to use buffalo meat, because it's better for the athletes," he said. "Back six year ago, they weren't eating as healthy, we had snacks, candy, malts but we switched that up," he said.

He says the players' diet mostly consist of vegetables, fruits, carbs, and protein.

"You wouldn't think an omelet after 8:30 at night, would be something you want to eat, but they love it," Stanciu said.

As he topped of the burger, and put it out for display.

"This something we'll probably we'll serve for the Green Back Packers during Training Camp," Stanciu said.

He says training camp is a time the college looks forward to each year.

"It's nice to see the progress over the years," he said.

St. Norbert and the Packers have the longest standing relationship between a college and Pro football team. 2017 marks 60 years.

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Packers players' diet includes veggies, fruits, carbs, and protein - Fox11online.com

If you want to lose weight, theres always the option of eating less. Of course, that may be too complicated a solution for many of us who want to see quick results, like losing eight pounds before going out for dinner tonight with friends we havent seen since high school.

Instead, you could always follow one of these popular dieting plans:

The Atkins Diet. Named after the renowned guitarist Chet Atkins, this diet requires you to try to eat while you are also trying to remember the chord progression of I Wanna Hold Your Hand. Nutritionally speaking, this is like trying to tap your head, pat your tummy and solve a quadratic equation at the same time. You will become so frustrated trying to do it all you will give up food completely during this diet and never be able to solve a quadratic equation.

The Low-Fat, High-Carb Diet. Whenever you sit down at the table, you divide your food into those with a low amount of fats, like celery stalks and facial tissues, which you put on the left. High-carb foods, like your Subarus carburetor, you put on the right. You stare at both piles, then you pull up pictures of Twinkies on your smartphone and begin to salivate, thus losing water weight.

The High-Fat, Low-Carb Diet. This is exactly like what the Low-Fat, High-Carb Diet feels like when it is staring in the mirror.

The South Beach Diet. Spend all the time you would normally devote to eating walking south on the beach and scorching your toes on burning hot sand. This will keep your mind off Twinkies, unless you happen to step on a discarded Twinkie wrapper. For dietary variety, step on some jagged sea shells, which will take your mind off your scorched toes.

The Mediterranean Diet. On this diet, you are allowed to only eat highly seasoned water that has been imported directly from the Mediterranean and put in an expensive bottle that you might be able to dangle from your belt loop. The premium version of the diet includes an all-expenses-paid trip to Greece and a stay at an AirBnB where the hosts are impossibly thin and extra virgin.

The Paleo Diet. The idea behind this diet is that if you could hunt and gather it, you can eat it. That means yes to meats, fruits and veggies, but no to Devil Dogs, caramel popcorn and Good & Plenty, unless you have a license to hunt Good & Plenty during the fall breeding season.

Remember, no cereal grains, legumes, dairy and potatoes on this diet, which makes it difficult. But while research isn't conclusive, one small study has found that after three weeks on this diet, subjects had dropped an average of five pounds, mainly by tearing their hair out.

The Good & Plenty Diet. For breakfast, eat the white ones first, then the pink ones. Then for lunch, work in the opposite direction, balancing your intake. For dinner, gobble them both up at the same time. You may not lose weight, but youll make your dentist happy.

Neil Offen can be reached at theneiloffencolumn@yahoo.com. Past columns can be found at http://www.theneiloffencolumn.wordpress.com.

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Choosing your diet plan Neil Offen - Durham Herald Sun (blog)

To better understand the relationship between a Mediterranean diet and cardiovascular health, a team of Italian scientists recently turned to the data in the Moli-Sani cohort study, a longitudinal study of the cardiovascular health of thousands of people in southern Italy.

Across a sample of nearly 19,000 people aged 35 and older, researchers saw a 15% average decrease in participants risk of cardiovascular incidents for every two-point jump on the scientists nine-point scale of diet adherence. That wasnt terribly surprising: previous studies have linked the plant-rich diet to a lower risk of cardiovascular disease.

But upon closer inspection of the data, the researchers realized that those benefits werent equally distributed. They only appeared for the well-off and well-educated. Participants with post-secondary education saw a 57% decrease in cardiovascular risk after following the diet, and those earning more than 40,000 (about $47,000) a year saw a 61% decrease. Those of lower socioeconomic status saw no benefits.

Adhering optimally to a Mediterranean diet is not enough, co-author and epidemiologist Marialaura Bonaccio told Quartz via email. Other factors beyond quantity and frequency of Mediterranean food appear to influence future health outcomes: one of them may be quality of foods.

A Mediterranean diet consists primarily of plant-based foods, with smaller proportions of seafood, dairy products, and meat. Those broad guidelines allow for a lot of individual variation.

The foods eaten by subjects of this study varied widely depending on their socioeconomic status. The more educated the participants, the more likely they were to report eating a broader variety of vegetables, plus more whole grains and organic vegetables. More educated participants had daily diets that contained higher proportions of monounsaturated fats like those found in olive oil and nutrients like calcium, vitamin D, and fiber. Meanwhile, higher-income study subjects ate more whole grain breads, fruits, nuts, and fish, and fewer meat products than subjects with lower incomes.

The Italian study couldnt answer precisely why the diets effectiveness varied by income and education. Previous research in the US found nutritional inequalities between the rich and poor, driven by both knowledge of what constitutes nutritious food andmore importantlythe means to buy it.

It is reasonable to think that higher socioeconomic groups are more conscious of what a healthy diet is and have greater material resources to afford a healthy dietary style, Bonaccio said.

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The Mediterranean diet works for the wealthy and well-educated ... - Quartz

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Obesity is a risk factor for numerous disorders that afflict the human race, so understanding how to maintain a healthy body weight is one of the most urgent issues facing society. By 2025, it is estimated,18 percentof men and 21 percent of women will be obese worldwide.

In the U.S. alone, 68.8 percentof people are already classified as overweight or obese. The U.K., meanwhile, has one of the greatest problems in Western Europe67 percentof men, 57 percentof women and a quarter of children are overweight.

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In order to lose and maintain a healthy weight, public health policy typically advises eating fewer caloriesby reducing the calorie content of food items or reducing portion size, for example. We propose, however, that simply choosing food items with reduced calories is not necessarily the best way to maintain a low weight.

There are hundreds of diets that, for a period, reduce calorie intake and in this way decrease body weight. But the number of those who are dieting at any one time demonstrates that this is not a long-term solution. Every year in the U.K., 65 percentof women and 44 percentof men try to reduce their weight, by, for example, decreasing fatty or sugary foods or eating smaller portions.

It is estimated that a quarter of people are always trying to lose weight. Mason Masteka/Flickr

Surveys also estimate that a quarter of people are always trying to lose weight, or "yo-yo dieting." The constant dieting to lose weight, subsequent weight gain and further weight loss are part of a cycle that repeats itself for these people. Losing weight is much easier than maintaining weight loss, yet for health reasons we need to retain the lower weight.

Although cutting calories can cause weight loss, it does not follow that if a person returns to their usual diet they will maintain their new low weight. In fact, studies have found that after a low calorie diet, between one- and two-thirds of people regain more weight than they had lost initially.

The fundamental problem with cutting calories is that the human body defends its original weight. Evolution has produced a body that anticipates future famine, with the result that when you reduce calorie intake there are strong physiological pressures to replace the lost energy.

For example, dieting causes the gut to release a range of hormones that increase appetite: changes that are still apparent after the diet is over. Leptinwhich makes one feel satisfied and fullhas been found to be still reduced a year after dieting has finished, while ghrelin, a hormone which stimulates appetite, remains raised. So even a year after a person finishes their diet, they will feel hungrier than when they started dieting, and still anticipate a higher food consumption than before the diet.

Reducing food intake also reduces the bodys metabolic rate and production of body heat. The resulting lower energy consumption helps a more thrifty body to return to its initial weight, as fewer calories are needed to fulfill these basic bodily functions.

There is also increasing evidence that dieting changes taste-sensitivity. For example, those who have recently lost weight rate the taste of sugar as more pleasant.

Dieting makes sugar taste more appealing. USembassy.gov

When low-calorie versions of foods are unknowingly consumed, there is a subconscious tendency to replace lost calories by changing other aspects of the diet. In one study, researchers gave artificially sweetened drinks to unknowing participants who were used to drinking sugary drinks. The scientists found that although on the first day the participants consumed fewer carbohydrates, from the second to the seventh day, the overall energy intake was unaffected: They made up for the lack of calories in the sweetened drinks with energy from other foods and beverages.

The overwhelming message is that the price of freedom from obesity is eternal vigilance. When the initial attention associated with dieting dissipates, basic biology ensures that weight is regained. For the weight-conscious, actively counting calories can be successful, but losing weight and keeping it off can only work if ones calorie intake becomes an issue high on the agenda.

The passive removal of caloriesfor example, when a manufacturer reduces portion size, or a government requests that chocolate bars should not contain more than 250 calorieswill only be influential if an individual persistently monitors overall calorie consumption. Without this psychological engagement, basic human biology will take over, and any lost calories will be replaced.

David Bentonis professor of psychology atSwansea University.

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How to Lose Weight and Keep It Off? Eternal Dieting Vigilance - Newsweek

New research shows bear bait makes up more than 40 percent of a black bears diet in northern Wisconsin. Researchers say bait could be playing a role in the high density of bears up north. The region is home to around 20,400 bears.

Dave MacFarland, large carnivore specialist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, co-authored the findings published in the Journal of Wildlife Management last month.

"It was a study designed to better understand the ecology of bears in the state and the role that the various foods on the landscape play in the population," said MacFarland. "That gives us information on the impact of regulations. Its sort of a first step to better understanding the role of bait in bear diet."

Baits often consist of high-calorie foods like meat, candy or cookies.MacFarland, along with researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,sampled bear bait and native foods in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest for the study. They then compared those samples to tissues taken from black bears during the 2011-2013 hunting seasons.

The study was restricted to areas that were primarily forest and wetlands to minimize the influence of crop cover on results.

The Wisconsin DNR estimates around 4 million gallons of bear bait are used annually on the landscape, and researchers noted northern Wisconsin black bears had a higher percentage of bait in their diets than food-conditioned bears in Yosemite National Park.

Female black bears that eat bait have been known to experience increased fertility, but researchers say further study is needed to assess the impact of baiting policies on the bear population.

"Itd also be interesting to see what in states with different policies and different regulations what role bait is playing in the diet of those bears, said MacFarland. "Theres some more work potentially to be done, but I think its an important first step in us better understanding this.

The baiting period in Wisconsin is roughly three times longer than neighboring states Michigan and Minnesota. The state allows baiting from April 15 through early October.

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Research Says Bait Makes Up More Than 40 Percent Of Bear Diets In Northern Wisconsin - Wisconsin Public Radio News