Oldways Leads 'Med Diet Month' Celebration

May is International Mediterranean Diet Month and as part of the edu­ca­tional and infor­ma­tive slate of events tak­ing place in sup­port of the pro­gram, con­sumers can now take a brief but fun online quiz that stacks their own eat­ing pat­terns against one of the health­i­est diets in the world. Fresh fish, beans and legumes, whole grains, boun­ti­ful veg­eta­bles and fruits, and olive oil pro­vide the foun­da­tion for the Med Diet.

Sara Baer-Sinnott, pres­i­dent of Oldways and one of the founders of the world­wide recog­ni­tion pro­gram, said that more than 1,000 peo­ple had taken the ​“How Mediterranean is your diet?” quiz within the first week of its launch. She noted how far U.S con­sumers have come since 1993, when she helped pio­neer the intro­duc­tion of the diet to the American mar­ket. ​“People were afraid of fat then,” she said. Not any­more.

Join the #MedDietMonth party May 19 — attend our Twitter Party, cohosted by @HarvardChanSPHhttps://t.co/5wl5qQ7rUFpic.twitter.com/PSv3riGBbU

— Oldways (@OldwaysPT) May 11, 2016

The quiz, she said, is ​“a new way of help­ing peo­ple become famil­iar with ways to make their diet health­ier. Every week another sci­en­tific study is released show­ing why this par­tic­u­lar diet is so (impact­ful). And then it’s so deli­cious!”

One cen­tral rea­son for that is olive oil. Baer-Sinnott quoted Greek nutri­tion­ist Antonina Trichopoulou con­sid­ered by some to be the mother of the Mediterranean Diet: ​“Olive oil makes the veg­eta­bles go down.” It also con­tains, in its purest, fresh­est form, a slew of antiox­i­dant prop­er­ties that pre­vent and heal dis­ease.

“It’s so excit­ing,” Sinnott added. ​“There are now so many dif­fer­ent olive oils to try and peo­ple are learn­ing that you can use dif­fer­ent ones in cook­ing and prepa­ra­tion, fin­ish­ing, and adding immense fla­vor. It’s fun to try oils from the U.S. but also inter­na­tion­ally from across the Mediterranean and coun­tries as far and wide as Australia and Chile, Japan, and beyond.”

Oldways is post­ing exclu­sive inter­views as ​“Med Month” blogs with experts like the author Michael Pollen, Food Tank, and Trichopoulou to fur­ther delve into the ben­e­fits and deli­cious­ness of this approach to food. They’ll be offer­ing sug­ges­tions for favorite cook­books, recipes, tips, and more that relate to the cat­e­gory, and a free 28-day Mediterranean Diet plan is avail­able for all who take the quiz.

On May 19, in con­junc­tion with the Harvard School of Public Health and other Mediterranean Food Alliance part­ners, Sinnott and Oldways will be host­ing a Twitter party.