Brazilian-style Mediterranean Diet
Famous all over the world for reducing heart problems, the Mediterranean diet (from countries in southern Europe, North Africa and Southwest Asia) remains in the spotlight when it comes to cardiovascular disease.
The population in this region has a controlled weight and a low incidence of cardiovascular diseases, hypertension and obesity. The good news is that Brazilian researchers have discovered genuinely national foods capable of replacing foods from that region.
Mediterranean diet
This diet emphasizes dairy products every day. Fish should enter the diet four times a week. Red meat and chicken, rarely. In the Mediterranean, a glass of wine a day is drunk during meals.
The indicated fat sources come from walnuts and olive oil.
Brazilian-style Mediterranean diet
Instead of wine, drink grape juice
In Europe, you drink a glass of wine a day to fight cholesterol. In Brazil, researchers recommend replacing the wine with a glass of unsweetened grape juice. Juice is also rich in antioxidant substances.
Sugar-free grape juice also has substances that help raise good cholesterol (HDL) and reduce bad cholesterol (LDL), but the biggest advantage is that it does not contain alcohol.
Sardine replaces horsetail
In the Mediterranean, you eat mackerel, in Brazil, there is a fish as efficient as: sardines, rich in omega 3. The advantage of this fish is its low cost. However, it is recommended to choose a natural fish version of canned sardines.
Canola oil in place of olive oil
Who doesn’t know the properties of olive oil? It is present on the table of all peoples in southern Europe. In Brazil, good oil is expensive, as the best versions of the product are imported. That’s where canola oil comes in, a product from our country.
Rich in omega 3 and 6, the oil is ideal for use in cooking. It loses in efficiency to olive oil due to its refinement, but it is possible to save on the expense of the diet by substituting olive oil at least for cooking food.
When seasoning salads and finishing dishes, however, olive oil is still the most recommended.
Change the walnuts to Brazil nuts
Dried fruit are sources of mono- and poly-unsaturated fats , and vitamin E. They lower cholesterol and combat clogging of blood vessels.
But, unfortunately, walnuts, pistachios and hazelnuts are expensive products for Brazilians. Therefore, a good alternative can be peanuts and Brazil nuts. They owe nothing to their counterparts in Europe.
