La Dieta Mediterránea

La Dieta Mediterránea (The Mediterranean Diet)

The Mediterranean has one of the world's healthiest diets.  Although not all of the of the countries on the Mediterranean follow the diet, their food is still a lot healthier than American food.  American diets contain a lot of processed foods and preservatives, whereas food in the Mediterranean diet is a lot more fresh.  The Mediterranean diet focuses on complex carbs, fresh fruits and veggies, legumes, and plenty of seafood.  They use olive oil as their primary fat and they use meat very little.  It seems that some parts of Spain use more meat than others because in Salamanca, almost everything they make has ham or some kind of pork in it.  Regardless, their reliance on legumes (beans, chickpeas, lentils, etc.), a variety of seafood, and extra virgin olive oil has kept them very healthy.  

The amount of walking that Spaniards do and their pattern of eating must also have something to do with their healthy physiques.  Spaniards eat a small breakfast at around 8 in the morning that usually consists of coffee with milk.  (I blame Spain for my new addiction to coffee) Lunch comes at 2:00 PM, which is a tad bit late for Americans that are used to eating at 12 noon.  (This was something that was hard for me to adjust to because I would always get hungry after my grammar and culture classes that ended at 12.  Luckily there was a cute little cafe right next to my classroom building that I could always rely on for some tapas) After lunch comes siesta time which is undoubtedly my favorite time of day, too bad America does not partake in these festivities.  I didn't have a hard time adjusting to siestas at all, the only problem was that for the first couple of days I wouldn't wake up until dinner time which didn't come until 9PM.  Dinner is usually light and it is accompanied with a glass of wine.  This was another struggle because Americans are used to indulging in heavy dinners. (To help this I bought snacks at the supermarket and kept them in my room for those emergency times when I could no longer take my hunger)  Coming back to America really makes me miss Spain's food, especially the food in Galicia which was by far my favorite!  Luckily I bought a tapas book that I brought back with me so that I could still have a little taste of Spain right here in America. :)