The Mediterranean diet: A view from history

Abstract

Although the virtues of the Mediterranean diet have been advocated since the Renaissance, adoption of the diet outside the Mediterranean region has proved difficult but not impossible. Efforts at promoting dietary change have been explored in the writings of Europeans and Americans since 1614 when Giacomo Castelvetro, an exile from Modena. Italy, published a book in England on Italian fruit, herbs, and vegetables. The historical causes of resistance by groups and individualsculture, class, sex, and human psychology-are revealed by asking the question. What does food mean to people? Particularly instructive are failed efforts by well-meaning late-19th-century American reformers to hasten the assimilation of newly arrived immigrants by interfering with their eating habits. The establishment of the New England Kitchen, which provided inexpensive Yankee cooking intended to Americanize poor immigrants, served only to expedite food distribution networks between California farms and urban centers, allowing mainly Mediterranean groups to eat their customary foods. Successful efforts at change are also explored, leading to the conclusion that the satisfying flavors of the Mediterranean diet provide the best chance of influencing people to abandon unhealthy foods in favor of fresh vegetables, fruit, grains, and olive oil. The diet must be promoted, however, not only by medical and nutritional authorities, but also by people who have the power to persuade: authorities on cooking and experts in advertising and marketing.