The way people eat in countries like Italy and Greece has had a nutritional model patterned after it. It is called the Mediterranean diet. People started paying attention to it after it became well publicized that people living in that part of the world have a much fewer occurrences of cancer and other diseases.

Though this diet was developed in the 1940s by an American doctor, Americans didn't start paying attention to it until well into the 1990s. Certainly better late than never, there are some differences between the Mediterranean Diet and the traditional American diet worth noting.

The Mediterranean Diet food pyramid is very different from the US Food Pyramid. First off, the Mediterranean Diet contains very little red meat. Although they use red meat in their meals, it's in very small portions, and not often. Taking up a big portion of the Mediterranean Diet food pyramid is fish. The US Food pyramid, on the other hand, groups all the different meats into one category.

Whole grain foods such as rice, bread, potatoes, couscous, and other things are what make up the main staple of Mediterranean dishes. Another important part of the Mediterranean diet are fruits and vegetables. So are beans and nuts. That is one thing the two different food pyramids have in common. However, the recommended quantities are a bit different.

While the Mediterranean Diet food pyramid has these separate from one another, the traditional US food pyramid has all of the forms of protein lumped together in one, making it difficult to see what specific parts each type of food should play in one's diet.

The reason why people have finally begun to pay attention to this Mediterranean way of thinking and eating is that they have been discovered to have shockingly low rates of cancer and other such diseases.

You'll find plenty of red wine being used in the Mediterranean Diet. Red wine has really powerful antioxidants, and it is part of just about every meal. You will also find a lot of olive oil in Mediterranean cooking. Like red wine, it also has some of its own antioxidant properties. If you want to live a healthy life, check out the Mediterranean Diet food pyramid. It will help you not only look better, but you'll feel better too.