Let’s follow up. Your faithful digital editor’s pescetarianism has proven to be sustainable, for the most part.
My vague culinary objective for the past five years, and probably long before, has been to steer my food intake toward a Mediterranean-style regimen, with vegetables appearing in greater quantities and meat, while permitted, consumed far more rarely than before. Dairy and fish remain on the table.
In 2021, I noted in this space that I’d made it three months meatless (red) as well as non-fowled. There have been ups and down, of course; it’s an aim, not the law. We’ve been honoring a resolution to dine at home, which implies meal-planning and cooking, both of which suit me.
Alcoholic beverages retain their allure, although in recent years my volume of consumption has steadily declined to a half dozen drinks a week, it even that. While it has taken time to face reality, it seems my days as a trencherman have concluded. When I decide to revert to the old ways and feast, the results are pain and malaise.
The trick is acceptance. I seem to have become a nibbler and a sampler. Perhaps there is genuine value in playing against type.
As for the notion of a Mediterranean “diet,” the most relevant aspect to me is how good it tastes. From Nice to Cairo, and Salonika to Marrakesh, has there ever been a menu item from Mediterranean locales that didn’t satisfy me?
Of course, so much of it comes down to one’s own personal fetishes. I adore all food from everywhere: Asia, Africa and South America, even Evansville on occasion.
However, speaking for myself alone (as life tends to be for me), the stork was utterly mistaken in dropping me here, by the Ohio. It should have been the Danube, or the Liffey, perhaps the Tiber. I was intended to be European, and as such, the Mediterranean rim is the foundation upon which the Old World was built.
Having concluded the experiential prelude, we now pass from dolmades to the moussaka.
The secret of the Mediterranean diet?, by Joanna Blythman (The Guardian)
Researchers at King’s College London and the University of California claim to have identified the “secret” underpinning the oft-quoted healthfulness of the Mediterranean diet. From their lab tests on mice (not just any old mice, genetically modified ones) they conclude that when olive oil and vegetables are eaten together, they form nitro fatty acids that help lower blood pressure – a risk factor for heart disease – by blocking the enzyme epoxide hydrolase.
Hmm. That whole thing about the Mediterranean diet — where does that come from , anyway?
The longevity of Mediterranean populations, we were assured, was explained by their high consumption of fruit and vegetables (true), and low consumption of red meat and saturated fat (false).
In fact, no sentient visitor to southern Europe could fail to notice the reliance on fatty lamb, full-fat yoghurt and cheese (feta, mozzarella, manchego, pecorino), kebabs and slow-cooked red meat dishes, such as the Greek beef stifado. Even vegetables come stuffed with red meat. Yes, monounsaturated olive oil is the default oil of the Mediterranean region, but a serious amount of saturated fat is eaten too.
Modern perceptions of the Mediterranean diet stem from observation of dietary traditions in Crete, Greece, and southern Italy in the 1960s, when people were physically active, spent lots of time outdoors and ate shared communal meals of fresh, seasonal, homecooked, locally produced foods. That’s not the same thing as bolting down a huge plate of pasta in a cook-in sauce, followed by a high-sugar, reduced-fat yoghurt, while watching MasterChef on the settee.
In the preceding paragraph, the underlining is mine. Following is the coda:
The debate around what really constitutes healthy eating is heated and continuing. We may not know yet with great certainty what is good for us, but using our own powers of observation, it is crystal clear what is bad for us: a diet of processed, industrialised junk food.
That’s a lot to chew on, because without mental mastication, what’s the point of the tagine?
I cannot close without acknowledging an ethical aspect to meatlessness. For me, the factory farming of animals is abhorrent. I’m well aware that a level of hypocrisy is inherent in any such discussion, and my simple goal is to reduce hypocrisy, if not outright eliminate it. For my yearly steak, I try to at least know where it comes from.
However, might the “fake-meat industry” (as The Economist refers to it) ultimately make hamburgers attractive to me again? Might fake pork enable a resumption of my beloved Szegedin Goulash (Székely Gulyás)? After all, plant-based meat alternatives are displaying shakiness in the marketplace.
Much at steak: The fake-meat industry is in trouble
Business is slowing down. Time to tempt new palates
Investors may now be warier of plant-based meat, but some are placing bets instead on the cultivated variety, grown in a lab from the cells of animals. Unhelpfully, a few American states have passed or proposed bans on the production and sale of cultivated meat, but insiders point to progress at the federal level. In Britain it has received clearance as pet food.
Cultivated meat faces the familiar hurdle of cost. But Nick Cooney of Lever, a venture-capital firm, reckons that whereas plant-based meat has been dogged by the perception “that it’s a ‘fake’ thing”, cultivated products could find their way to supermarkets’ meat aisles.
For the moment, I’ll remain safely pescetarian. Just don’t go all Kurt Cobain on me, and ask whether fish have feelings.
“Edibles & Potables” is Food & Dining Magazine’s Sunday slot for news and views that range beyond our customary metropolitan Louisville coverage area, as intended to be food (and drink) for thought.
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