July 14, 2025 • 53 mins
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The Mediterranean diet is an evidence-based eating pattern that supports heart health, brain health, and longevity with delicious, sustainable food choices. We explore what makes this diet special and provide practical ways to incorporate its principles into everyday meals.
• Core components include vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and olive oil
• Fish (especially fatty varieties like salmon) should be eaten regularly
• Poultry, eggs, and dairy can be consumed in moderation
• Red meat and processed foods should be limited
• Extra virgin olive oil should replace butter and processed oils
• Making your own salad dressings with olive oil is easy and healthier than store-bought options
• Fill half your plate with vegetables at lunch and dinner
• Choose whole grains over refined ones
• Wild-caught fish is preferable to farm-raised when possible
• Simple swaps like using herbs and spices instead of salt can enhance flavor healthfully
Send us an email at yourcheckuppod@gmail.com with your questions and feedback.
Production and Content: Edward Delesky, MD & Nicole Aruffo, RN
Artwork: Olivia Pawlowski
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hi, welcome to your Checkup.
We are the patient educationpodcast, where we bring
conversations from the doctor'soffice to your ears.
On this podcast, we try tobring medicine closer to its
patients.
I'm Ed Dolesky, a familymedicine doctor in the
Philadelphia area, and I'mNicole Rufo.
I'm a nurse and we are soexcited you were able to join us
here again today.
All right, you got to lay it onme.
(00:28):
We let's see.
We're walking back from thebeach and you got to tell like
what did you see?
Oh, my God, I'm assuming canyou set the scene?
Set the scene.
We're in the dunes.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
We're like end of the day.
We spent all day on the beach.
We're walking back and there'sa couple behind us who I guess
Eddie didn't see.
No, I didn't see him at all.
I knew they were there and it'slike a really nice sunny day.
(01:04):
And it's like a really nicesunny day and then eddie just
let out one of the bigger fartsI've ever heard and it was
smelly and that's how you knowlike it was a smelly one when
you can smell it outside youknow, right like it, it like
overcomes the wind and every bit, and then so I'm like jet
(01:26):
streamand it was loud and so like I'm
looking at him I mean we bothhad sunglasses on so like I was
like giving him eyes, like yodude, like there's people behind
us, but of course he couldn'tsee and he wasn't paying,
because then right after that hegoes beach poops smell
(01:48):
different, yells it, and I'mlike what is happening right now
?
So then we get like off thelittle pathway, like we're on
the street now, and the girllike both of them like look at
me Because I was behind him,like look at me.
And then them like look at mebecause I was behind him, like
look at me.
And then just like look at himand like laugh.
And then they walk in oppositedirection and then eddie keeps
(02:11):
walking, just blissfully unawareI had no idea what just
happened.
He's so happy.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
He, you know, feels this release and yeah literally
no idea that that happened untilwe were like practically back,
like you told me the story and Iwas like there were people
around like normally the socialgrace is to like maybe hold it
(02:38):
until the appropriate time.
I thought I was on a desertedisland, except for you and you
just get the pleasure of beingaround for all of these.
But wow, yeah, but they're likethey had such a positive
demeanor about it that I feltokay about it.
Beach poops do smell different.
Tell me, wrong.
Yankee candles should have a.
(03:00):
A candle, if they're going likeanti candle called the rotten
seashore is really what theyshould do.
Rotten seashore, yeah, andthere's a great opportunity
there for marketing.
So I hope you enjoy that littlestory.
Um, kind of really get you afeature of our personality here,
or unified one hive mindpersonality.
(03:23):
Um, can you explain to themthat?
Like, obviously we had like twodifferent like cinema
upbringings.
I'm gonna go get the um thecake tasting arrangement soon
just to like go through what wethought.
But because I think some of ourmost interested listeners are
curious about how that went, butwe had a different upbringing,
(03:47):
like I was a like Lord of theRings, star Wars some Harry
Potter, I mean.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
What he's trying to say is that he really never saw
a single Adam Sandler movieuntil now, and this I just
became aware of this yesterday,actually, I think, or the day
before.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Maybe the extent of it.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Because we last weekend or whatever other
weekend we just were likelooking for something to watch.
On Netflix, we saw this oneAdam Sandler movie.
It's called like the Do-Over orsomething.
It was a bit of an older movie.
I had never seen it or heard ofit and eddie's like oh yeah,
like I haven't seen this oneeither, so you watch it.
It's good.
Whatever we had watchedpreviously, that the movie with
(04:33):
like his daughters and it's thebat mitzvah when that came out,
like last year, so not invitedto my bat mitzvah um, but that I
didn't know that that was theextent of ed's Adam Sandler
experience.
And then what were we watching?
Oh, last night yeah, we're onNetflix we saw that they're
making a happy Gilmore too.
So I'm like, oh, no way.
(04:54):
Like wow, they're like 30 yearslater they're making a second
one of these movies.
Then come to find out that hehad never seen that.
So I'm like, okay, whatever.
Then he tells me that he'sreally never seen any of them.
So then I'm going down the listof just like the classic,
(05:15):
culturally significant iconmovies and he has never seen
them.
Billy Madison.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
No.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
So many good one-liners from Billyy madison
happy gilmore, which you sawyesterday.
The water boy can't say I'veseen it big daddy, little nicky
nope, nope eight crazy nightsnope 50 first dates.
I feel like I watched thatmovie 500 times I've watched it
zero deuce bigelow male gigolothe longest yard.
(05:46):
No, oh, we did watch, just gowith it we did we watched that
one with jennifer aniston?
Did we watch that one or theone with jubilee more when they
were in africa?
Speaker 1 (06:01):
oh, we watched blended with blended.
Yeah, okay, we didn't watchjust recently watched grown-ups
last weekend yes, and then soonto watch grown-ups too yeah,
this is just is it kevin spadeor david spade?
Speaker 2 (06:16):
really crazy, he's funny he like looks funny yeah,
he, the same people are in allthe movies and they're like just
like stupid, stupid and dumb.
Well, they're so good.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
I was listening to another podcast and Dan Patrick
was on there and he's like ohyeah, I've been in 21 Adam
Sandler movies and I'm like ohmy God, 21.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Yeah, we have a lot of work to do Tons of work, but
you've made some progressbecause we watched.
Okay, happy Gilmore.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
The Bat Mitzvah, one Blended Grownups, okay, four,
we're getting somewhere.
Yeah, we're making progress,yeah, and we will continue to we
have to watch the water plays.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
So stupid and so funny.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I need that in my life, yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
I need that in my life.
Yeah, there are so many goodlike I feel like there are so
many good just like funny oneliners that you've probably hear
all the time and you have noidea that it's from one of his
movies.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Well, to my credit, we also need you to see Star
Wars.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
I don't need to do that.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Yes, you see, you know, love what they love.
I'm being so open minded towatch all these Adam Sandler.
No, okay, because that's a boymovie, the Adam Sandler.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Like funny, stupid movies are for everyone Are you
saying it's unisex, they're allinclusive.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
I know a lot of women who like Star Wars and Lord of
the Rings.
Do you like them or?
Speaker 2 (07:43):
something.
What's that I said?
Do you like them, or something?
What's that I said?
Do you like them, or something?
I Okay Star Wars and Lord ofthe Rings.
I also have a problem.
Not a problem.
I have a hard time with thingsthat you have to do a lot of,
like world building, which, like.
I'm actually surprised that Iliked game of thrones as much as
(08:06):
I did, because I I'm notusually like fantasy, ish type
girly gotcha I can respect that.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Yeah, there's a fair amount of legwork up front.
Um, I'm not asking you to belike a diehard super fan of any
of them, but what I I am askingis just an open mindset.
Leave the door unlocked atleast, if it's not open to you
know, because I don't actuallydon't think anyone in your
family has seen those.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
And yeah, we were too busy watching Adam Sandler.
He's got like 37 movies.
He does have a lot of them.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
It's been a long time since that light's been on.
All right, why don't I go getthe cake tasting thing?
Because really, what the peoplecome here for, as it turns out
from all of our podcast numbers,is our food review, and Mike
seems to think that they mighthave pictures of us up at local
restaurants thinking, wow, weshould.
We need to not get a bad reviewfrom these two yeah these two
(09:10):
like health podcast people whotalk about food too much.
So let's tell you about our caketasting.
So what were you expecting whenwe signed up that this was
going to happen?
Speaker 2 (09:22):
for our wedding tasting.
Yeah, um, I'm not sure Meneither.
I'm not sure what I wasexpecting.
I feel like I remember hersaying that it was like a
private thing, but then I alsocouldn't remember.
But then I also talked to likesomeone at work who had used
(09:42):
like the caterer, like venuepeople that were using they have
like 16 venues or somethingcrazy.
So someone at work got marriedat one of like this caterers,
other venues and their tastingwas with like eight other
couples.
And then I was like, oh wait,is this going to be the same?
And it wasn't.
And it was so fun.
It was just like a private, aprivate tasting with like us and
(10:06):
one of the chefs and we got totry.
Well, we like picked what wewanted for our wedding menu
before, so like that's what shemade, like the main dishes, and
then we got to try a couple ofthe um like appetizer, cocktail
hour things, which were alldelicious, yeah, yeah and then I
(10:27):
didn't know I wasn't expectingthat we were going to do the
cake tasting during that too, sothat was a fun surprise.
That was so much fun and I'mlike not, I like, I'm not a cake
girly, I would much rather havelike, ice cream over cake, but
it was so much fun it was a tonof fun and it was absolutely
(10:47):
like 12 different flavors ofcake and then like seven icings,
a couple fillings, so I got um,yeah, definitely, I got 12, 12
cakes and 10 ice.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Ed Eddie has the layout they gave us, yeah, and
which?
The prospect of that wasoverwhelming.
The food was delicious.
The salmon was a huge takeawaythat was absolutely out of this
world.
And the chicken was very unique.
It was like an apple chicken.
We didn't remember that we hadordered the apple chicken.
No, that's a bold thing.
That doesn't get you steak andI know um, so there's that the.
(11:28):
So they also came out with theselittle like I don't know what
to what to call them.
They were like these littleballs.
Um, there's so much moreelegance to it because the way
she described that it took allday to make these balls and this
garnish that went with them.
I feel bad that.
That's the only thing I had tosay about it.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Oh yeah, I forget what they were called.
We're going to have to askHeather and I want like an
entire plate of them at ourwedding.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Yeah, that was delicious.
They had these portobellomushroom croquettes, a garlic
shrimp on a skewer, which was ofcourse excellent, and the
caesar salad was they had like amoroccan chicken skewer thing.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
That was good oh, that was.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
That was really good, also unexpected, and I think
there's going to be like five orsix more, because there's like
11 orders which is like so greatthat those are all included and
the salad was great it was socozy in there and the salad I
mean I guess.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Well, I'm hoping that it's the same when it's all for
like a big group of people andnot just us.
Sure, I feel like I have aweird thing with salad.
It's not a weird thing, I don'tthink, but I liked that it felt
like the salad was all likechopped and all incorporated
(12:53):
together and it wasn't just likelettuce and then a carrot and
then tomato and a cucumber andit's just all separate.
I like it all like chopped andtogether, like if you put a
salad in front of me that it'sjust like a bunch of things on
top of each other.
Get it out of here.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
You, you do need to salad.
The salads that impressed methe most are the ones that seem
like an artist took each pieceof lettuce and painted the
dressing on the lettuce how onegets that but like everything's
incorporated, like on your fork,you can have a part of
everything.
It's most important to me thatit's painted on.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Yeah, we know, you're a big condiment guy.
It's important to me is all I'msaying but I'll eat it.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
I'll eat it anyway.
I hear you and you know, I hopeyou know, when you multiply at
times how many people werehaving at the wedding.
I hope that it works out thatway.
I have confidence in them.
They seemed great.
It was just such a cute,intimate dinner that was
unexpected and I thought thatwas great, and we already talked
about the entrees because wewere excited about that.
(13:59):
But let's go back to the cake.
Let's go back to the cake.
The the entire thing was um.
Well, we started likingeverything to start, which was
bad, because we were like, yeah,oh, no, what are we going to do
?
Speaker 2 (14:16):
we have to pick one.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Or if we do, we don't have to three, or with the
being a three-layered cake, youcan do some sort of weird like,
each tier is a different flavorper version of yeah, you put it
better than I could, so there'sno great way to start this off,
but I seemingly remember that wetried chocolate chip first yeah
, that was good too it also was,I know it's not on our like
(14:40):
list of things, but well, itmight have to be on the B list.
Did we describe how it came out?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Well, it was on a giant platter and all of the
little they gave, little likenuggets of the cake it was like
a little square bite of eachflavor.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
There were like 12 of them, and then little cups of
all different flavor icings andthen a couple fillings all
different flavor icings and thena couple fillings.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
You know icing can so frequently have this like sugar
done up, refined type of flavorto it, too sugary, very sweet.
None of them had that.
It was all creamy and savoryand it wasn't too sweet and I
thought that was absolutelydelicious.
I don't know what the best wayto go about this was, but there
were a couple highlights that Iwanted to hit on.
What I will say is that almondchiffon, vanilla chiffon were
(15:38):
not anything that I was tooexcited about.
They were delicious, though.
How'd you feel about the carrotabout?
They were delicious, though howdid you feel about the carrot?
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Well, the carrot had walnuts in it, so I took a
little lick of it.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Got it Red velvet.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
That one was okay.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
But if you had to pick one, it wasn't going to be
that one.
Devil's Food.
This was forgettable.
I don't remember.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
You liked this one.
It begins with an l and ends inlavender.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Yeah, I loved the lavender cake.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
That was so good.
And then they had a lemon icing.
It's like the lavender and thelemon was really good and it was
also really good with thevanilla icing yeah, it was great
with the vanilla.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
We actually missed each other here.
I thought that the flavorsmaybe my little boy palette
wasn't ready for a lavenderlemon cross collab album but did
you try the lavender andvanilla?
Yeah, that was delicious.
Yeah, yeah, absolutelydelicious.
There was a tea.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Our intern is on his back paws in the air tired from
the week oh, he looks so cutehe's so cute.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
There was a tea cake.
How'd you feel about that?
Speaker 2 (16:58):
oh, that was interesting.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
I liked that tell me about the lemon, because you
like the lemon.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Lemon's a contender lemon is our top contender.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
And then they had a lemon filling and and a lemon
icing, triple lemon yeah, andapparently previous bride recent
previous bride had done thatand that was excellent.
Um, triple lemon, lemon, curdlemon, cake lemon.
It's on the list.
There was a marble.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Yeah, that one was fine yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
The vanilla cake.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
The vanilla cake was very good.
It was delicious.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Yeah, I shocked that you can do vanilla that good and
I left this one intentionallycake wise for the end because it
excited us the most and it wasthe coconut.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Yeah, that was our favorite coconut with the
vanilla icing.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
And how could you make coconut so fluffy but moist
?
Speaker 2 (17:53):
It was like fluffy but dense.
I don't know that I've ever hada coconut cake and I know like
not, like everyone likes coconut, but I don't really care.
It's not your wedding.
So if we get a coconut cake andyou don't like it, you got to
pick what you want.
I don't care.
(18:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
As we get further away from the tasting, I feel
more like nostalgic and drawn tothe coconut cake.
I think the vanilla ice cream,the vanilla icing, is what we
said, right, yeah, there werelike so many delicious so they
came in like little cups, thething with the tiniest little
spoon you could imagine.
There was a vanilla buttercream, oh oh, that was absolutely
(18:39):
delicious.
A standout was the saltedcaramel buttercream.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah, that was really good on the chocolate chip cake
.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
That was a standout.
A raspberry jam was underplayedthe whole time and at the 11th
hour I slapped some raspberryjam, I think on a vanilla cake
and I was like, whoa, that'slike a classic wedding cake,
like vanilla cake with raspberryfilling and raspberry.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
is that him snoring?
I think he's snoring oh my god,he's so cute three walks and
he's out for the day he walkedhot or he worked hard.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Chocolate ganache was a little thick for me, if you
remember that.
Well, there was a cream cheesebuttercream, absolutely
delicious.
The lemon curd.
We talked about that a littlebit in the triple lemon
breakdown.
Raspberry jam, raspberry mousse.
Raspberry mousse would havebeen the raspberry double dip,
(19:40):
vanilla swirl wedding cake.
That could be great.
We're just enamored and we'reso distracted as we rant about
this wedding cake experience.
Look, listing off all of thesehas been a fun exercise.
What you need to know is thatit was absolutely delicious.
We'll pick one or we'll pickthree for either each of the
(20:03):
tiered cakes, or for thecupcakes and you probably won't
find out, but it was a deliciousexperience.
What's that?
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I said no, you won't.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
But we loved it.
I've never tasted cake likethat before.
I've never tasted icing likethat before.
I've never tasted icing likethat before.
Superlatives of each and walkedout of there.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
I also, like I've been to a lot of weddings, I
don't know that I've had thecake at any one of them.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Well, you know, after , like burning a thousand
calories on the dance floor,I've devoured a cake.
I've probably eaten your cake.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Yeah, that's probably why I haven't had any.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Maybe, um, I've eaten other people's cake, so I've
had a lot of cake.
Have I like paused to likeunderstand what was going on in
that cake?
No, no, I have no clue.
I don't remember a wedding cakewhatsoever from anyone.
So it's for us and our weddingcake.
(21:03):
Yeah, and it'll be delicious.
I'm excited.
This left me looking forward toit a lot.
All right For what was supposedto be a very short intro and a
very short episode.
We are anything but that, butwhat are we going to talk about
today, nick?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Today we have a fun one.
We're talking about theMediterranean diet.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
It's more than just olives and feta.
It's a whole lifestyle that wereference a lot here on your
checkup, and the idea of it isthat it supports heart health,
brain health, longevity.
There's a lot of evidence tosupport it.
It's one of the most commonlycited diets and so today we
wanted to take a deep dive andgo through and talk about what
(21:46):
the Mediterranean diet isactually, because we referenced
it so much, its benefits, andgive you some practical tips,
like some things to walk awayfrom this episode, thinking like
oh, I can incorporate that intomy life and have some form of
the Mediterranean diet in mydiet.
Does that sound okay?
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Yeah, that sounds great.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Cool.
So, before we jump in, we'restarting off these episodes with
an information statement, andso everything we talk about
today is drawn from robustmedical evidence and from
various randomized controlledtrials, major clinical
guidelines and reviews publishedin the New England Journal of
Medicine and the AmericanJournal of Clinical Nutrition,
(22:30):
and statements from the AmericanHeart Association and American
College of Cardiology.
And we try to synthesize thatdown, remove the jargon for you
here today.
So, without further ado, whydon't we dive in?
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Okay, hit us with the highlights about what the
Mediterranean diet is.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Yeah.
So at its core, it's a way ofeating inspired by the
traditional diets of countrieslike Greece, italy and Spain,
and it's not about strict rulesper se, but it's more about
patterns of eating.
And so the Mediterranean dietitself encourages lots of
vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and when I think of that I
(23:09):
think about things like brownrice or oats, legumes, nuts and
healthy fats like olive oil.
Fish, especially fatty kindslike salmon or sardines, are
really pushed and encouraged.
We have some salmon in thefridge when we had the tasting
was delicious and encouraged tohave a couple times a week.
(23:31):
Poultry, eggs and dairy arefine in moderation, and then red
meat and those sweet treatsoften take a backseat in this
type of eating pattern.
I feel like we try to do ahealthy amount of this.
I mean, I buy a couple olivesand I call it the Mediterranean
diet.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
So you know no, I mean, I feel like this is a lot
of what we eat.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Just looking at this list, yeah, like pretty
regularly save for the sardinesand the occasional like run
where we're having a lot ofsirloin.
Yeah, I mean there was a hot 10days there where I had like
three times and like you didn'tjoin me in that arc, but there
was a lot of red meat there sowell, it's not that we were.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
We made it once and then we were at the beach.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
My mom made it right, and then I made it.
Like a week before that, my dadoh yeah, for father's day yeah,
yeah, it's like three times inseven days, but I was like, well
, you wanted it, you wanted itfor special dinner, I did, and
there it was.
So why don't we, why don't webreak down the main principles
(24:41):
and keep going a little bitfurther, so kind of to reiterate
the highlights of that?
It's mostly a plant-based food,and so that's something to keep
in mind.
We listed them off earlier.
The main fat ends up beingolive oil, and so we're really
ditching the butter and insteadusing an extra virgin olive oil,
(25:03):
or evo, evu as they call it.
What is evoo?
Speaker 2 (25:08):
yeah, when you're like, rachel ray coined that
term did she really I think.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
So it's a rachel ray joint.
Yeah, yeah you, you sent thatto me one time.
You're like evoo, like add thatin there, and I was like oh
wait, really.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Yeah, I was like what ?
Speaker 1 (25:21):
what's an evil?
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Oh yeah, no, we're a big Evie.
Oh, people Well you are now byproxy of me I am are a few
things that I'm weirdly actuallyno, it's not weird that I'm
like a stickler about, and oneof them is having it has to be a
(25:43):
good quality extra virgin oliveoil and it has to be single
origin because the it's justbetter quality.
And if you have one, like ifyou look on the back of the
olive oil bottle and it'll likesay the region that it's from.
So sometimes it'll be likeItaly, Spain, Argentina, and
(26:04):
it'll just say one, but mostoften the cheaper ones, which
are not as high quality, willhave like Spain, Argentina,
Italy, It'll list like fivecountries and like your olive
oil, it's basically like thescrapple of olive oil and it's
just low quality stuff fromeverywhere all poured in
together.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Is that like off the cuff here and we're stepping
away from the structure of ouroutline here, but is that have
some sort of effect in youropinion?
Or is it like a?
Speaker 2 (26:35):
I don't know.
It's just better quality.
It makes me feel better aboutit.
I don't know why I needed to bethat, but I do.
And there is a differencebetween olive oil and like
vegetable oil or canola oil.
Get that out of your house.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
What do you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Cause canola oil is like the worst thing you can put
into your body and it does notcome in this house.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
It's in all of the salad dressings, all of the
sprays.
Don't buy a spray that has that.
Buy only avocado oil or extravirgin olive oil.
Make your own salad dressing.
It's not hard and it tastesbetter.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Oh yeah, that's what I have here is that you know
using the olive oil for thesalad dressings, and maybe you
can take us through one of yourfamous salad dressings once we
get to that part of the episode.
So we talked about.
Moving on to the fish, you knowtalking about fish and seafood
that are regularly incorporated.
We highlighted salmon andsardines and we talked about we
(27:39):
talked about a bunch of thesefeatures already poultry, eggs,
dairy in moderation.
We're going to talk about waysyou can incorporate those into
the diet and limiting processedfoods, and we've talked about
this in past episodes.
Processed foods are basicallyprobably the worst thing.
You can probably like reallypare down like a vegetable based
(28:02):
processed food and like you canget down pretty niche into that
conversation, but they becomehyper palatable and make you
hungrier than you're supposed tobe and really contribute to
obesity itself, and so processedfood is something to avoid.
In contrast to that, people saylike when I interview them for
(28:25):
like a patient interaction,they're like oh yeah, I try to
like get like whole foods.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
That doesn't mean you necessarily shop at the store,
but like whole foods means thatlike it isn't so processed we're
talking about just like astraight up banana or like a
single ingredient yeah, what'sthe processed food that you
might like the most, but, no,it's the worst for you oh, um, I
(28:51):
mean probably any kind of likecured meat or like deli meat
that's also turns to cancer inyour body, but it's so delicious
it is delicious.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
We spoke with our cardiologist, like our friendly
neighborhood residencycardiologist, and he said if
there was one thing he wouldtake as a huge win to remove
from people's body and theirdiet, it was the italian hoagie
which shot me in the chest as,like a subway italian bmt, put
(29:24):
everything on it and extra,growing up like the local
franchise, knowing me when Iwalked in being like oh, there
is so bad for you yeah, I don'tthink we eat a lot of it no, you
know, the delicatessen aroundthe corner has a great one that
you got to get.
(29:44):
They make it so tasty.
That's the problem.
It's so good.
Make it less good and maybe Iwon't eat it.
Yeah, I would probably say um,thanks for asking.
Mine are probably chips, thebrain goes off with chips and I
just indulge.
(30:05):
I mean, there was that bag fromtrader joe's that I was
mortified when I like came upfor air and it was 140 calories
in a serving and there were sixservings in the bag and before
he was like, he's like holdingthe bag and he's like, hmm, this
bag's kind of small, and twoseconds later, oh my god, there
are six servings in here yeah,gobbled, all six servings was
(30:26):
mortified.
It was back to the liketortilla chip days, or any kind
of chip is not safe around youno, it really isn't.
And you know, we, we took thedive and I mean went to trader
joe's like greater than a weekago and it was still here.
I'm surprised it lasted thatlong, but yeah, there's that.
(30:47):
So processed foods aresomething to think twice about
if you can afford.
Unfortunately, they're oftenmore affordable than the other
foods, which is a damn shame,and they last longer, which is
also more convenient becauseproduce does not keep that well,
I don't know what your stanceon, on, uh, frozen vegetables is
(31:08):
.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Um, I mean, I think it's better than not having any
vegetable at all.
But freezing it, um, I mean itchanges the.
What am I trying to say?
Like the structure of it, likethere's less.
Like the fiber is damaged whenit's frozen, so like there's not
as much in it, so like thatpart of it there it's not, um,
(31:32):
like the nutritional value isn'tas high as like a raw vegetable
or a cooked vegetable.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
But I mean it's better than nothing sure, yeah,
that because they go, they gobad, so poor.
I mean, like some of our binsare just like produce graveyards
and it.
It just happens.
It happens to anyone and likesomething to be improved on.
That's me, that's a me problem.
(31:58):
Any other thoughts before wemove on to the next segment?
Speaker 2 (32:07):
I mean salmon's mentioned in the Mediterranean
diet a lot and like is now mydiet, like my time when I go
into my diet tribe about whyyour fish should be wild caught
and not farm raised.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Oh, I think it should be.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
That's another thing that I'm particular about.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Yeah, walk us through your thoughts when it comes to
farm raised versus wild caught,anything but, in this particular
case, salmon.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Well, it's the same thing with the olive oil, like
it's just better quality andlike a healthier fish that
you're eating and like whenyou're looking in the grocery
store.
It depends what store and youknow what like brand of you know
wherever you buy your fish, butthe farm raised fish and the
wild caught fish always lookdifferent.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
They do.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
And sometimes in the farm raised fish.
It'll be like it depends.
Sometimes it's either like morepale and it's like this is like
a, a sick, sad fish that Idon't want to eat, or sometimes,
depending on the store, it'slike really red and like looks
really good, but they likeinject dye into it to make it
look more appealing to buy yeah,I feel like there's a lot of
(33:26):
documentaries about this.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
I feel like we watched one in the more now
distant past.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
So it's just.
I mean it's a bit moreexpensive.
I think salmon in general isn'tlike the most cost efficient
thing you can buy.
So, like I mean, if you'respending the money on salmon,
get the better one.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
It's all part of my plan to make Eddie live forever.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
It's working so far.
Knock on wood, so it almost.
I mean it might help in portioncontrol in some ways.
It would be more beneficial ifit was cheaper, though that's
the.
That's the rub.
Is that no one?
Yeah.
The Mediterranean diet's great,though that's the that's the
rub.
Is that no one?
Yeah, the mediterranean diet'sgreat.
no one said that it wasaffordable and reasonable, for I
(34:16):
mean to feed a family like yeah.
So we also recognize that here,where we talk about these ideal
things to do and realize that,like it's not always so
available or reasonable, butsomething to think about,
because I certainly wasn'tthinking about these things
before we started looking to buysalmon together.
(34:39):
You're welcome, I just kind ofgrabbed it and I was like, oh
yeah, here we go, no issue.
But you see those documentariesabout how they shove the fish
in the small, small areas andthe processing to try to get
them to grow as fast as possible, and like we're definitely
outside of the scope of likewhat we usually claim to be like
(35:01):
some sort of expertise here.
But well then, it's the samewith like.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
I mean red meat isn't on the Mediterranean diet, but
like a grass fed piece of meatlike that.
I don't know how to not soundlike morbid Like that meat that
you're eating was once an animalthat was like eating grass and
(35:26):
not like crap.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Right and now you're eating it, so it's like a
healthier thing that you'reeating right, like if you look
at the sort of ugly underbellyof food production, especially
when it comes to meat.
It's probably an unpleasantthing to really dig into lots of
documentaries out there aboutthat, but if this grosses you
(35:48):
out, you you know greatopportunity to lean more into
the vegetable and the legume andthe legume.
So there's a note here aboutalcohol.
It says if you drink alcohol,keep it moderate, and that
basically a small glass of winewith meals is traditional in the
Mediterranean diet, but it'sabsolutely not required for
(36:10):
health benefits Mediterraneandiet but it's absolutely not
required for health benefits.
Less is better here.
I think there's a wholecommunity of people who are at
least intrigued by the idea ofdrinking a glass of wine and
then imbuing some sort ofcardiovascular benefit years
down the line.
Culturally, I don't know whatyou're going to do at home.
It's probably not like thehealth benefits of this
(36:34):
cardiovascular maybe benefitdon't outweigh all of the other
stuff that can happen.
So my two pieces, my two centsless is better here.
It's traditional, very, verymodest.
Moderation is what I would say.
Okay.
So there's a ton of healthbenefits to the Mediterranean
(36:58):
diet itself.
It, formally well-studied andestablished, reduces the risk of
heart attack, stroke andcardiovascular disease.
That's crazy, for just I mean,yes, it's the food that goes
into your body, but this issomething that you can be
proactive about and really takea look at and say like, wow, I
(37:19):
had this conversation with mydoctor and they said my 10 year
heart attack stroke risk scoreis 25% and I see this online all
the time and they're likewhat's something I can do?
That's natural.
Incorporate some of theseelements into your diet.
I mean, it's not easy.
Behavior change takes a longtime.
(37:40):
It's a thing that is tough toincorporate consistently, but
this is something to think about.
There are legitimate benefitshere to help people, and the
benefits don't stop there.
There's evidence that it helpsprevent and manage type 2
diabetes and that it helpssupport and sustain healthy
(38:02):
weight management, and there's alot of benefits because there's
more vegetables, you have morefiber, more healthy fats, helps
contribute to your gutmicrobiome and reduce
inflammation, perhaps improvingyour metabolism.
But all in all, it's just agood idea to think about this.
This is like the mostevidence-based diet, the thing
(38:23):
pushed forward the most, and Imean there's no like big pharma
attached to this.
It's just like a bigMediterranean.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Big med.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
That could be misconstrued.
So this is all well and good.
I think we've convinced peoplethat like well, maybe not
perfect for everyone, there arecertain elements of this that
could be really helpful forsomeone's health, especially
when it comes to reducingcardiovascular risk.
Like that's the big key, onethat's always taught to us in
school and that you kind ofteach and practice.
(39:00):
But but I think a lot of timespeople go out there and like,
what can I do?
Like what are the practicalsteps that I can do to make this
happen?
Nikki?
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Can you take us through what a breakfast might
look like for someone who'sgoing through the Mediterranean
diet, thinking to make somechanges?
Speaker 2 (39:21):
Sure, we have some Greek yogurt with berries, maybe
some nuts and a drizzle ofhoney.
We've actually been doing thata lot lately.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
We have.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Or some whole grain toast with tomatoes and olive
oil.
Now I feel like I want toastwith tomatoes, and we ate all
the tomatoes that we have.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
We definitely did, and I guess I wonder, would
ricotta also fit in this,because we've been doing some of
that as well also fit in thisbecause we've been doing some of
that as well.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
I don't know how much dairy plays a part in.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
You said, dairy in moderation is where we were at,
so maybe the Greek yogurt wouldsatisfy that.
Oh yeah, but this all soundsdelicious.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
What about?
What do you think?
Yeah, I want a piece of toastwith the tomato now.
I love tomatoes.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
You do Quick aside, you know like a summer heirloom
tomato.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
I love it so much it's like my top five favorite
foods.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Is that a Jersey?
Speaker 2 (40:27):
Flaky salt?
I don't know.
Your mom's talking about Jerseytomatoes and I'm like, yeah,
mary loves a Jersey tomato.
No, I seriously love them.
Like when my boss gave me thosetomatoes from her garden last
summer, do you remember that?
That was like the happiest dayof my life and like I told her
that and I think she thought Iwas being sarcastic.
But I'm like, no, that made meso happy.
(40:50):
There were a bunch of them andevery day after work I had my
afterschool snack and it wasjust a tomato.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
It was delicious, absolutely delicious.
Um big tomato gal over here,can you take us through what a
lunch might look like forsomeone on the Mediterranean
diet?
Speaker 2 (41:05):
Sure Lunch you could have some mixed greens with some
chickpeas, more tomatoes,olives, feta and maybe a little
homemade olive oil lemondressing all right, take us
through, give us a little sample.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
You know this is a in the family recipe book.
I know I said it wrong.
It's more for the bit than itis anything.
Tell us a little bit about ahomemade dressing.
What are the staple elements todo that?
Speaker 2 (41:37):
okay, you need well, you need oil, a good quality
extra virgin olive oil, and theneither like a vinegar or a
citrus.
So either like lemon juice redwine vinegar is good usually a
two to one ish ratio of the oilto the lemon or the vinegar.
(41:57):
Whatever the like acid part isa little joj of some dijon
mustard, if you're feeling crazy, um, and then salt pepper and
then whatever other likeseasonings you want.
Could put a little like gratedParmesan cheese in there, but
(42:18):
it's really easy.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
Yeah, you broke it down there.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
It's way better for you than anything you buy in the
store that's just filled withcanola oil.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Yeah, and like God knows what else, right, yeah,
like in there um, can you keepit?
Speaker 2 (42:34):
yeah, you can keep it .
You should keep it on thecounter, though, because it'll
all just like get weird in thefridge and then you mentioned
vinegar.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
You said red wine vinegar.
Can you use any other types ofvinegar?
Speaker 2 (42:46):
oh yeah, an apple cider vinegar.
Um, there's also a dressingI've made before with like some
soy sauce in there, like somesoy sauce, apple cider vinegar
oil Dijon.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Yeah, yeah.
So it sounds like there's likea ton of variety that you can do
.
There were some fundamentalelements in there.
It sounds like you need theextra virgin olive oil, a
vinegar and the acidic componentI right to say that you're like
balsamic vinegar.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
You can put a little like zhuzh of honey in there if
you want it a little sweeterI've seen like maple syrup yeah,
that too that happened lastweek, or just this past week,
earlier in the week.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
How many times can I say week, oh my god.
Week, um, what else?
Thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
I mean hopefully we inspire some people to like
really get creative in thekitchen no, it's really so easy,
and you probably already haveall those things in your house,
and if you don't, you should getthem and become an ingredient
household, and then you can makewhatever dressing you want,
whenever you feel like it.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
Yeah, and then like you can make whatever dressing
you want, whenever you feel likeit, yeah, and then like you can
make salads interesting andcreative too.
Like you try something new anddifferent, which is awesome.
I mean, this is a hugeeye-opening experience in our
time together.
That like I love, that piece.
I love when you make a saladdressing like that Huge
endorsement, I'm really steppingoutside of my dressing before
(44:12):
my normal role here of like Ilove this stuff, the first
breakfast salad that I had,changed my life.
And you know, just for keepingfamily secrets we won't say it
on air, but like I love thebreakfast salad.
And then it's just like everyweek comes out a new salad
dressing.
I drink the stuff.
(44:33):
That's probably notMediterranean of me, but like I
take it out of the mason jar itis a problem with condiments?
Yeah, that's more of me thingthan anything else.
But guys, let me tell you thestuff is great.
Try it at home.
Transitioning here Don't eatthe whole can of chickpeas.
(44:53):
I became a hefty boy when Istarted doing that.
All the time, here and there,like there's like probably like
a serving and a half, maybe twoand a half servings in a can of
chickpeas Double check me onthat when you get the chance.
Really high in protein, Reallyhigh in fiber.
I love the chickpea itself.
I was a beefcake when I waseating chickpeas all the time,
(45:17):
unwarranted and like withoutlimit, because I thought it was
the best thing.
So everything in moderation iswhat I'm trying to say.
Even the best foods in theMediterranean diet can deserve a
little moderation.
That's my diatribe on thechickpea.
I'm also seeing whole grainpita with hummus and veggies and
(45:37):
that's a lunch.
That's a great option.
But it all starts at thegrocery store.
We can pause there for a second.
We talked about a dinner.
Can you take us through what adinner on the Mediterranean diet
might be talked?
Speaker 2 (45:52):
about a dinner.
Can you take us through what adinner on the Mediterranean diet
might be?
Sure?
Maybe, like a few times a week,you have some grilled salmon
roast, some eggplant zucchiniwith some quinoa.
This actually sounds reallygood.
I think we have quinoa in thekitchen too.
Or you can make a chicken stewNot quite sure what that entails
.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
With some tomatoes, garlic and herbs, served with
brown rice.
No notes on this Chickenincorporating the lean meat
there as opposed to a red meat,which is a great option.
I don't have any thoughts aboutdinner, but it's just another
idea for you folks out therethinking about how can I be
Mediterranean?
Everyone likes to snack.
Can you take us through acouple different ideas for what
(46:39):
you can keep in the house tosnack on?
Speaker 2 (46:42):
so yeah, fresh fruits and veggies are always a good
option to have.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
List a couple because I think like it's a very.
We've been doing a lot of handwaving, like fresh fruits and
veggies.
What can people take, pick upand like I mean, we have some of
our fruit now carrots, bellpeppers, cucumbers I feel like
the fruit is more seasonal rightnow.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
Get some like watermelon.
That's good.
We just got a good one.
I might have some tonight whilewe watch Love Island, because
we don't have any processedsweet treats in the house.
So I guess I'm going to have toeat some fruit.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
I know you're really To cure my sweet tooth.
You're really like leaning intome on this.
It's like, but you know,chocolate chips don't count for
the calories.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
And then some nuts.
So like almonds or walnuts aregood to snack on too, but also
very calorie dense.
So do with that, do with.
Can you break that down alittle?
What is like you?
Speaker 1 (47:40):
know no jargon.
Explain calorie dense.
What does that mean?
But there's a lot of caloriesfor a little bit yeah, I mean
like here I am thinking I'mgreat, oh yeah, even.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
Eddie, just like I mean you can.
If you have a little scalethat's more accurate, you can
like weigh it or measure it orcount them.
That was a sad day, but yeah,that was a sad day because Eddie
was out here eating I thinkthere were cashews like by the
handful.
It was pist sad day, but yeah,that was a sad day, because
Eddie was out here eating.
(48:13):
I think there were cashews likeby the handful.
Speaker 1 (48:14):
It was pistachios.
Oh, yeah, the pistachios andthe cashews.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
Yeah, by the fistful, you had a problem with that too
, and Eddie is not a small guy,so he doesn't have small hands,
so he was eating many servingsvery quickly.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
And it was sad when you like, broke out the scale.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
And then yeah, Cause I like pack some for your lunch,
like one serving, and you werelike wait, that's it.
This has this 120 calories, oh.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
I was mortified, yeah .
Speaker 2 (48:40):
I think he was like I'm eating 400 calories a day
Just in nuts.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Oh yeah, it's a miracle that my weight, like,
stays the same or behaves theway it does.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
Yeah, that's so crazy Wow.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
Anyway, must be so nice.
And as we talk about all thesefoods, it all starts at the
grocery store, and so when yougo there and you're making your
decisions, maybe plan ahead orknow what you're going to pick
out, because now you've got acouple options and a couple meal
plans for the week to getcreative, and there's recipes
all over the place.
(49:12):
But there are a fewfundamentals that we want to
share with you, that we'vetalked about the episode, but we
want to put them in a moreitemized list for you, so we'll
go back and forth here.
But here are a couple keythings to think about when
getting started with theMediterranean diet.
Number one fill about half yourplate with vegetables at lunch
and dinner.
I mean, look at the circle,half dedicate to all those
(49:38):
vegetables.
I don't think a lot of peopledo that.
Maybe they do, maybe I'm I mean, even sometimes my portions are
off.
I'm like, yeah, let's put allthat meat and let's get the,
even when it's like rice andchicken and vegetables like
pasta Eddie four bowls pasta.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
Eddie, four bowls, a roof it's my family's name.
I've been calling him Eddiefour bowls for the last couple
of days because he had fourbowls of pasta.
Speaker 1 (50:08):
Look, it's delicious.
Can you take us through numbertwo?
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Swap your butter for olive oil yeah, easy win right
there.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
Number three choose a whole grain over refined ones.
I think, uh, whole grainmeaning like you can just
literally see the name wholegrain on the the bread, but, um,
a refined one would be what?
Like a standard, standard whitebread.
Is that right?
I'll just take them from here.
Plan fish meals, maybe twice aweek, and that goes back to
(50:39):
going to the grocery store,making your plan ahead of time.
Maybe you plan to have somefish more than one time during
the week and see how that goesfor you.
You can use herbs and spicesinstead of salt.
At some point we're going totalk about the dash diet, but
you can still make fooddelicious even without a lot of
sodium and finish your mealswith fruit instead of sweets.
(51:00):
So you know, even like you weresaying tonight, you're probably
going to lean into thewatermelon for a dessert Not as
fun, perhaps, as an ice cream,but if you do get a watermelon
and you're in the right frame ofmind, you might have the best
watermelon you've ever had inyour life.
So just keep an open mind.
You know who you are if you'relistening to this and you
(51:21):
understand what that bit was.
So I'm just going to deliversome final thoughts about the
Mediterranean diet.
It isn't just healthy, it'sprobably enjoyable, sustainable
and really backed by some of thestrongest evidence that we have
in nutrition science.
At the end of the day, it helpsprotect your heart, your brain,
your weight and, because it'sso delicious, maybe it makes you
(51:46):
happier.
It's not about cutting out food.
It's all about nourishing yourbody in delicious ways to be
able to improve your health.
I don't know if you need totalk to your doctor before doing
this, because it's prettystandard and a nice thing to do,
but maybe it's a nice idea totalk to your doctor, or maybe
talk to a dietician if youaren't sure which way you need
(52:06):
to head.
But, most importantly, thanksfor coming back to another
episode of your Checkup.
Hopefully you were able tolearn something for yourself, a
loved one or a neighbor.
Find us on our website.
Send us some fan mail.
We love to interact with ourcommunity.
Send us an email atyourcheckuppod at gmailcom.
But, most importantly, stayhealthy, my friends.
(52:29):
Until next time.
I'm Ed Dolesky.
I'm Nicola Rufo.
Thank you and goodbye.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
Bye.
Speaker 1 (52:42):
This information may provide a brief overview of
diagnosis, treatment andmedications.
It's not exhaustive and is atool to help you understand
potential options about yourhealth.
It doesn't cover all detailsabout conditions, treatments or
medications for a specificperson.
This is not medical advice oran attempt to substitute medical
advice.
You should contact a healthcare provider for personalized
guidance based on your uniquecircumstances.
(53:03):
We explicitly disclaim anyliability relating to the
information given or its use.
This content doesn't endorseany treatments or medications
for a specific patient.
Always talk to your healthcareprovider for complete
information tailored to you.
In short, I'm not your doctor,I am not your nurse, and make
sure you go get your own checkupwith your own personal doctor.
Hi, welcome to your Checkup.
We are the patient educationpodcast, where we bring
conversations from the doctor'soffice to your ears.
On this podcast, we try tobring medicine closer to its
patients.
I'm Ed Dolesky, a familymedicine doctor in the
Philadelphia area, and I'mNicole Rufo.
I'm a nurse and we are soexcited you were able to join us
here again today.
All right, you got to lay it onme.
(00:28):
We let's see.
We're walking back from thebeach and you got to tell like
what did you see?
Oh, my God, I'm assuming canyou set the scene?
Set the scene.
We're in the dunes.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
We're like end of the day.
We spent all day on the beach.
We're walking back and there'sa couple behind us who I guess
Eddie didn't see.
No, I didn't see him at all.
I knew they were there and it'slike a really nice sunny day.
(01:04):
And it's like a really nicesunny day and then eddie just
let out one of the bigger fartsI've ever heard and it was
smelly and that's how you knowlike it was a smelly one when
you can smell it outside youknow, right like it, it like
overcomes the wind and every bit, and then so I'm like jet
(01:26):
streamand it was loud and so like I'm
looking at him I mean we bothhad sunglasses on so like I was
like giving him eyes, like yodude, like there's people behind
us, but of course he couldn'tsee and he wasn't paying,
because then right after that hegoes beach poops smell
(01:48):
different, yells it, and I'mlike what is happening right now
?
So then we get like off thelittle pathway, like we're on
the street now, and the girllike both of them like look at
me Because I was behind him,like look at me.
And then them like look at mebecause I was behind him, like
look at me.
And then just like look at himand like laugh.
And then they walk in oppositedirection and then eddie keeps
(02:11):
walking, just blissfully unawareI had no idea what just
happened.
He's so happy.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
He, you know, feels this release and yeah literally
no idea that that happened untilwe were like practically back,
like you told me the story and Iwas like there were people
around like normally the socialgrace is to like maybe hold it
(02:38):
until the appropriate time.
I thought I was on a desertedisland, except for you and you
just get the pleasure of beingaround for all of these.
But wow, yeah, but they're likethey had such a positive
demeanor about it that I feltokay about it.
Beach poops do smell different.
Tell me, wrong.
Yankee candles should have a.
(03:00):
A candle, if they're going likeanti candle called the rotten
seashore is really what theyshould do.
Rotten seashore, yeah, andthere's a great opportunity
there for marketing.
So I hope you enjoy that littlestory.
Um, kind of really get you afeature of our personality here,
or unified one hive mindpersonality.
(03:23):
Um, can you explain to themthat?
Like, obviously we had like twodifferent like cinema
upbringings.
I'm gonna go get the um thecake tasting arrangement soon
just to like go through what wethought.
But because I think some of ourmost interested listeners are
curious about how that went, butwe had a different upbringing,
(03:47):
like I was a like Lord of theRings, star Wars some Harry
Potter, I mean.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
What he's trying to say is that he really never saw
a single Adam Sandler movieuntil now, and this I just
became aware of this yesterday,actually, I think, or the day
before.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Maybe the extent of it.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Because we last weekend or whatever other
weekend we just were likelooking for something to watch.
On Netflix, we saw this oneAdam Sandler movie.
It's called like the Do-Over orsomething.
It was a bit of an older movie.
I had never seen it or heard ofit and eddie's like oh yeah,
like I haven't seen this oneeither, so you watch it.
It's good.
Whatever we had watchedpreviously, that the movie with
(04:33):
like his daughters and it's thebat mitzvah when that came out,
like last year, so not invitedto my bat mitzvah um, but that I
didn't know that that was theextent of ed's Adam Sandler
experience.
And then what were we watching?
Oh, last night yeah, we're onNetflix we saw that they're
making a happy Gilmore too.
So I'm like, oh, no way.
(04:54):
Like wow, they're like 30 yearslater they're making a second
one of these movies.
Then come to find out that hehad never seen that.
So I'm like, okay, whatever.
Then he tells me that he'sreally never seen any of them.
So then I'm going down the listof just like the classic,
(05:15):
culturally significant iconmovies and he has never seen
them.
Billy Madison.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
No.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
So many good one-liners from Billyy madison
happy gilmore, which you sawyesterday.
The water boy can't say I'veseen it big daddy, little nicky
nope, nope eight crazy nightsnope 50 first dates.
I feel like I watched thatmovie 500 times I've watched it
zero deuce bigelow male gigolothe longest yard.
(05:46):
No, oh, we did watch, just gowith it we did we watched that
one with jennifer aniston?
Did we watch that one or theone with jubilee more when they
were in africa?
Speaker 1 (06:01):
oh, we watched blended with blended.
Yeah, okay, we didn't watchjust recently watched grown-ups
last weekend yes, and then soonto watch grown-ups too yeah,
this is just is it kevin spadeor david spade?
Speaker 2 (06:16):
really crazy, he's funny he like looks funny yeah,
he, the same people are in allthe movies and they're like just
like stupid, stupid and dumb.
Well, they're so good.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
I was listening to another podcast and Dan Patrick
was on there and he's like ohyeah, I've been in 21 Adam
Sandler movies and I'm like ohmy God, 21.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Yeah, we have a lot of work to do Tons of work, but
you've made some progressbecause we watched.
Okay, happy Gilmore.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
The Bat Mitzvah, one Blended Grownups, okay, four,
we're getting somewhere.
Yeah, we're making progress,yeah, and we will continue to we
have to watch the water plays.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
So stupid and so funny.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I need that in my life, yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
I need that in my life.
Yeah, there are so many goodlike I feel like there are so
many good just like funny oneliners that you've probably hear
all the time and you have noidea that it's from one of his
movies.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Well, to my credit, we also need you to see Star
Wars.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
I don't need to do that.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Yes, you see, you know, love what they love.
I'm being so open minded towatch all these Adam Sandler.
No, okay, because that's a boymovie, the Adam Sandler.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Like funny, stupid movies are for everyone Are you
saying it's unisex, they're allinclusive.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
I know a lot of women who like Star Wars and Lord of
the Rings.
Do you like them or?
Speaker 2 (07:43):
something.
What's that I said?
Do you like them, or something?
What's that I said?
Do you like them, or something?
I Okay Star Wars and Lord ofthe Rings.
I also have a problem.
Not a problem.
I have a hard time with thingsthat you have to do a lot of,
like world building, which, like.
I'm actually surprised that Iliked game of thrones as much as
(08:06):
I did, because I I'm notusually like fantasy, ish type
girly gotcha I can respect that.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Yeah, there's a fair amount of legwork up front.
Um, I'm not asking you to belike a diehard super fan of any
of them, but what I I am askingis just an open mindset.
Leave the door unlocked atleast, if it's not open to you
know, because I don't actuallydon't think anyone in your
family has seen those.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
And yeah, we were too busy watching Adam Sandler.
He's got like 37 movies.
He does have a lot of them.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
It's been a long time since that light's been on.
All right, why don't I go getthe cake tasting thing?
Because really, what the peoplecome here for, as it turns out
from all of our podcast numbers,is our food review, and Mike
seems to think that they mighthave pictures of us up at local
restaurants thinking, wow, weshould.
We need to not get a bad reviewfrom these two yeah these two
(09:10):
like health podcast people whotalk about food too much.
So let's tell you about our caketasting.
So what were you expecting whenwe signed up that this was
going to happen?
Speaker 2 (09:22):
for our wedding tasting.
Yeah, um, I'm not sure Meneither.
I'm not sure what I wasexpecting.
I feel like I remember hersaying that it was like a
private thing, but then I alsocouldn't remember.
But then I also talked to likesomeone at work who had used
(09:42):
like the caterer, like venuepeople that were using they have
like 16 venues or somethingcrazy.
So someone at work got marriedat one of like this caterers,
other venues and their tastingwas with like eight other
couples.
And then I was like, oh wait,is this going to be the same?
And it wasn't.
And it was so fun.
It was just like a private, aprivate tasting with like us and
(10:06):
one of the chefs and we got totry.
Well, we like picked what wewanted for our wedding menu
before, so like that's what shemade, like the main dishes, and
then we got to try a couple ofthe um like appetizer, cocktail
hour things, which were alldelicious, yeah, yeah and then I
(10:27):
didn't know I wasn't expectingthat we were going to do the
cake tasting during that too, sothat was a fun surprise.
That was so much fun and I'mlike not, I like, I'm not a cake
girly, I would much rather havelike, ice cream over cake, but
it was so much fun it was a tonof fun and it was absolutely
(10:47):
like 12 different flavors ofcake and then like seven icings,
a couple fillings, so I got um,yeah, definitely, I got 12, 12
cakes and 10 ice.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Ed Eddie has the layout they gave us, yeah, and
which?
The prospect of that wasoverwhelming.
The food was delicious.
The salmon was a huge takeawaythat was absolutely out of this
world.
And the chicken was very unique.
It was like an apple chicken.
We didn't remember that we hadordered the apple chicken.
No, that's a bold thing.
That doesn't get you steak andI know um, so there's that the.
(11:28):
So they also came out with theselittle like I don't know what
to what to call them.
They were like these littleballs.
Um, there's so much moreelegance to it because the way
she described that it took allday to make these balls and this
garnish that went with them.
I feel bad that.
That's the only thing I had tosay about it.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Oh yeah, I forget what they were called.
We're going to have to askHeather and I want like an
entire plate of them at ourwedding.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Yeah, that was delicious.
They had these portobellomushroom croquettes, a garlic
shrimp on a skewer, which was ofcourse excellent, and the
caesar salad was they had like amoroccan chicken skewer thing.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
That was good oh, that was.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
That was really good, also unexpected, and I think
there's going to be like five orsix more, because there's like
11 orders which is like so greatthat those are all included and
the salad was great it was socozy in there and the salad I
mean I guess.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Well, I'm hoping that it's the same when it's all for
like a big group of people andnot just us.
Sure, I feel like I have aweird thing with salad.
It's not a weird thing, I don'tthink, but I liked that it felt
like the salad was all likechopped and all incorporated
(12:53):
together and it wasn't just likelettuce and then a carrot and
then tomato and a cucumber andit's just all separate.
I like it all like chopped andtogether, like if you put a
salad in front of me that it'sjust like a bunch of things on
top of each other.
Get it out of here.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
You, you do need to salad.
The salads that impressed methe most are the ones that seem
like an artist took each pieceof lettuce and painted the
dressing on the lettuce how onegets that but like everything's
incorporated, like on your fork,you can have a part of
everything.
It's most important to me thatit's painted on.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Yeah, we know, you're a big condiment guy.
It's important to me is all I'msaying but I'll eat it.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
I'll eat it anyway.
I hear you and you know, I hopeyou know, when you multiply at
times how many people werehaving at the wedding.
I hope that it works out thatway.
I have confidence in them.
They seemed great.
It was just such a cute,intimate dinner that was
unexpected and I thought thatwas great, and we already talked
about the entrees because wewere excited about that.
(13:59):
But let's go back to the cake.
Let's go back to the cake.
The the entire thing was um.
Well, we started likingeverything to start, which was
bad, because we were like, yeah,oh, no, what are we going to do
?
Speaker 2 (14:16):
we have to pick one.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Or if we do, we don't have to three, or with the
being a three-layered cake, youcan do some sort of weird like,
each tier is a different flavorper version of yeah, you put it
better than I could, so there'sno great way to start this off,
but I seemingly remember that wetried chocolate chip first yeah
, that was good too it also was,I know it's not on our like
(14:40):
list of things, but well, itmight have to be on the B list.
Did we describe how it came out?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Well, it was on a giant platter and all of the
little they gave, little likenuggets of the cake it was like
a little square bite of eachflavor.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
There were like 12 of them, and then little cups of
all different flavor icings andthen a couple fillings all
different flavor icings and thena couple fillings.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
You know icing can so frequently have this like sugar
done up, refined type of flavorto it, too sugary, very sweet.
None of them had that.
It was all creamy and savoryand it wasn't too sweet and I
thought that was absolutelydelicious.
I don't know what the best wayto go about this was, but there
were a couple highlights that Iwanted to hit on.
What I will say is that almondchiffon, vanilla chiffon were
(15:38):
not anything that I was tooexcited about.
They were delicious, though.
How'd you feel about the carrotabout?
They were delicious, though howdid you feel about the carrot?
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Well, the carrot had walnuts in it, so I took a
little lick of it.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Got it Red velvet.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
That one was okay.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
But if you had to pick one, it wasn't going to be
that one.
Devil's Food.
This was forgettable.
I don't remember.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
You liked this one.
It begins with an l and ends inlavender.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Yeah, I loved the lavender cake.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
That was so good.
And then they had a lemon icing.
It's like the lavender and thelemon was really good and it was
also really good with thevanilla icing yeah, it was great
with the vanilla.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
We actually missed each other here.
I thought that the flavorsmaybe my little boy palette
wasn't ready for a lavenderlemon cross collab album but did
you try the lavender andvanilla?
Yeah, that was delicious.
Yeah, yeah, absolutelydelicious.
There was a tea.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Our intern is on his back paws in the air tired from
the week oh, he looks so cutehe's so cute.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
There was a tea cake.
How'd you feel about that?
Speaker 2 (16:58):
oh, that was interesting.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
I liked that tell me about the lemon, because you
like the lemon.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Lemon's a contender lemon is our top contender.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
And then they had a lemon filling and and a lemon
icing, triple lemon yeah, andapparently previous bride recent
previous bride had done thatand that was excellent.
Um, triple lemon, lemon, curdlemon, cake lemon.
It's on the list.
There was a marble.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Yeah, that one was fine yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
The vanilla cake.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
The vanilla cake was very good.
It was delicious.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Yeah, I shocked that you can do vanilla that good and
I left this one intentionallycake wise for the end because it
excited us the most and it wasthe coconut.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Yeah, that was our favorite coconut with the
vanilla icing.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
And how could you make coconut so fluffy but moist
?
Speaker 2 (17:53):
It was like fluffy but dense.
I don't know that I've ever hada coconut cake and I know like
not, like everyone likes coconut, but I don't really care.
It's not your wedding.
So if we get a coconut cake andyou don't like it, you got to
pick what you want.
I don't care.
(18:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
As we get further away from the tasting, I feel
more like nostalgic and drawn tothe coconut cake.
I think the vanilla ice cream,the vanilla icing, is what we
said, right, yeah, there werelike so many delicious so they
came in like little cups, thething with the tiniest little
spoon you could imagine.
There was a vanilla buttercream, oh oh, that was absolutely
(18:39):
delicious.
A standout was the saltedcaramel buttercream.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah, that was really good on the chocolate chip cake
.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
That was a standout.
A raspberry jam was underplayedthe whole time and at the 11th
hour I slapped some raspberryjam, I think on a vanilla cake
and I was like, whoa, that'slike a classic wedding cake,
like vanilla cake with raspberryfilling and raspberry.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
is that him snoring?
I think he's snoring oh my god,he's so cute three walks and
he's out for the day he walkedhot or he worked hard.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Chocolate ganache was a little thick for me, if you
remember that.
Well, there was a cream cheesebuttercream, absolutely
delicious.
The lemon curd.
We talked about that a littlebit in the triple lemon
breakdown.
Raspberry jam, raspberry mousse.
Raspberry mousse would havebeen the raspberry double dip,
(19:40):
vanilla swirl wedding cake.
That could be great.
We're just enamored and we'reso distracted as we rant about
this wedding cake experience.
Look, listing off all of thesehas been a fun exercise.
What you need to know is thatit was absolutely delicious.
We'll pick one or we'll pickthree for either each of the
(20:03):
tiered cakes, or for thecupcakes and you probably won't
find out, but it was a deliciousexperience.
What's that?
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I said no, you won't.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
But we loved it.
I've never tasted cake likethat before.
I've never tasted icing likethat before.
I've never tasted icing likethat before.
Superlatives of each and walkedout of there.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
I also, like I've been to a lot of weddings, I
don't know that I've had thecake at any one of them.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Well, you know, after , like burning a thousand
calories on the dance floor,I've devoured a cake.
I've probably eaten your cake.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Yeah, that's probably why I haven't had any.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Maybe, um, I've eaten other people's cake, so I've
had a lot of cake.
Have I like paused to likeunderstand what was going on in
that cake?
No, no, I have no clue.
I don't remember a wedding cakewhatsoever from anyone.
So it's for us and our weddingcake.
(21:03):
Yeah, and it'll be delicious.
I'm excited.
This left me looking forward toit a lot.
All right For what was supposedto be a very short intro and a
very short episode.
We are anything but that, butwhat are we going to talk about
today, nick?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Today we have a fun one.
We're talking about theMediterranean diet.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
It's more than just olives and feta.
It's a whole lifestyle that wereference a lot here on your
checkup, and the idea of it isthat it supports heart health,
brain health, longevity.
There's a lot of evidence tosupport it.
It's one of the most commonlycited diets and so today we
wanted to take a deep dive andgo through and talk about what
(21:46):
the Mediterranean diet isactually, because we referenced
it so much, its benefits, andgive you some practical tips,
like some things to walk awayfrom this episode, thinking like
oh, I can incorporate that intomy life and have some form of
the Mediterranean diet in mydiet.
Does that sound okay?
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Yeah, that sounds great.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Cool.
So, before we jump in, we'restarting off these episodes with
an information statement, andso everything we talk about
today is drawn from robustmedical evidence and from
various randomized controlledtrials, major clinical
guidelines and reviews publishedin the New England Journal of
Medicine and the AmericanJournal of Clinical Nutrition,
(22:30):
and statements from the AmericanHeart Association and American
College of Cardiology.
And we try to synthesize thatdown, remove the jargon for you
here today.
So, without further ado, whydon't we dive in?
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Okay, hit us with the highlights about what the
Mediterranean diet is.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Yeah.
So at its core, it's a way ofeating inspired by the
traditional diets of countrieslike Greece, italy and Spain,
and it's not about strict rulesper se, but it's more about
patterns of eating.
And so the Mediterranean dietitself encourages lots of
vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and when I think of that I
(23:09):
think about things like brownrice or oats, legumes, nuts and
healthy fats like olive oil.
Fish, especially fatty kindslike salmon or sardines, are
really pushed and encouraged.
We have some salmon in thefridge when we had the tasting
was delicious and encouraged tohave a couple times a week.
(23:31):
Poultry, eggs and dairy arefine in moderation, and then red
meat and those sweet treatsoften take a backseat in this
type of eating pattern.
I feel like we try to do ahealthy amount of this.
I mean, I buy a couple olivesand I call it the Mediterranean
diet.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
So you know no, I mean, I feel like this is a lot
of what we eat.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Just looking at this list, yeah, like pretty
regularly save for the sardinesand the occasional like run
where we're having a lot ofsirloin.
Yeah, I mean there was a hot 10days there where I had like
three times and like you didn'tjoin me in that arc, but there
was a lot of red meat there sowell, it's not that we were.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
We made it once and then we were at the beach.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
My mom made it right, and then I made it.
Like a week before that, my dadoh yeah, for father's day yeah,
yeah, it's like three times inseven days, but I was like, well
, you wanted it, you wanted itfor special dinner, I did, and
there it was.
So why don't we, why don't webreak down the main principles
(24:41):
and keep going a little bitfurther, so kind of to reiterate
the highlights of that?
It's mostly a plant-based food,and so that's something to keep
in mind.
We listed them off earlier.
The main fat ends up beingolive oil, and so we're really
ditching the butter and insteadusing an extra virgin olive oil,
(25:03):
or evo, evu as they call it.
What is evoo?
Speaker 2 (25:08):
yeah, when you're like, rachel ray coined that
term did she really I think.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
So it's a rachel ray joint.
Yeah, yeah you, you sent thatto me one time.
You're like evoo, like add thatin there, and I was like oh
wait, really.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Yeah, I was like what ?
Speaker 1 (25:21):
what's an evil?
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Oh yeah, no, we're a big Evie.
Oh, people Well you are now byproxy of me I am are a few
things that I'm weirdly actuallyno, it's not weird that I'm
like a stickler about, and oneof them is having it has to be a
(25:43):
good quality extra virgin oliveoil and it has to be single
origin because the it's justbetter quality.
And if you have one, like ifyou look on the back of the
olive oil bottle and it'll likesay the region that it's from.
So sometimes it'll be likeItaly, Spain, Argentina, and
(26:04):
it'll just say one, but mostoften the cheaper ones, which
are not as high quality, willhave like Spain, Argentina,
Italy, It'll list like fivecountries and like your olive
oil, it's basically like thescrapple of olive oil and it's
just low quality stuff fromeverywhere all poured in
together.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Is that like off the cuff here and we're stepping
away from the structure of ouroutline here, but is that have
some sort of effect in youropinion?
Or is it like a?
Speaker 2 (26:35):
I don't know.
It's just better quality.
It makes me feel better aboutit.
I don't know why I needed to bethat, but I do.
And there is a differencebetween olive oil and like
vegetable oil or canola oil.
Get that out of your house.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
What do you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Cause canola oil is like the worst thing you can put
into your body and it does notcome in this house.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
It's in all of the salad dressings, all of the
sprays.
Don't buy a spray that has that.
Buy only avocado oil or extravirgin olive oil.
Make your own salad dressing.
It's not hard and it tastesbetter.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Oh yeah, that's what I have here is that you know
using the olive oil for thesalad dressings, and maybe you
can take us through one of yourfamous salad dressings once we
get to that part of the episode.
So we talked about.
Moving on to the fish, you knowtalking about fish and seafood
that are regularly incorporated.
We highlighted salmon andsardines and we talked about we
(27:39):
talked about a bunch of thesefeatures already poultry, eggs,
dairy in moderation.
We're going to talk about waysyou can incorporate those into
the diet and limiting processedfoods, and we've talked about
this in past episodes.
Processed foods are basicallyprobably the worst thing.
You can probably like reallypare down like a vegetable based
(28:02):
processed food and like you canget down pretty niche into that
conversation, but they becomehyper palatable and make you
hungrier than you're supposed tobe and really contribute to
obesity itself, and so processedfood is something to avoid.
In contrast to that, people saylike when I interview them for
(28:25):
like a patient interaction,they're like oh yeah, I try to
like get like whole foods.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
That doesn't mean you necessarily shop at the store,
but like whole foods means thatlike it isn't so processed we're
talking about just like astraight up banana or like a
single ingredient yeah, what'sthe processed food that you
might like the most, but, no,it's the worst for you oh, um, I
(28:51):
mean probably any kind of likecured meat or like deli meat
that's also turns to cancer inyour body, but it's so delicious
it is delicious.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
We spoke with our cardiologist, like our friendly
neighborhood residencycardiologist, and he said if
there was one thing he wouldtake as a huge win to remove
from people's body and theirdiet, it was the italian hoagie
which shot me in the chest as,like a subway italian bmt, put
(29:24):
everything on it and extra,growing up like the local
franchise, knowing me when Iwalked in being like oh, there
is so bad for you yeah, I don'tthink we eat a lot of it no, you
know, the delicatessen aroundthe corner has a great one that
you got to get.
(29:44):
They make it so tasty.
That's the problem.
It's so good.
Make it less good and maybe Iwon't eat it.
Yeah, I would probably say um,thanks for asking.
Mine are probably chips, thebrain goes off with chips and I
just indulge.
(30:05):
I mean, there was that bag fromtrader joe's that I was
mortified when I like came upfor air and it was 140 calories
in a serving and there were sixservings in the bag and before
he was like, he's like holdingthe bag and he's like, hmm, this
bag's kind of small, and twoseconds later, oh my god, there
are six servings in here yeah,gobbled, all six servings was
(30:26):
mortified.
It was back to the liketortilla chip days, or any kind
of chip is not safe around youno, it really isn't.
And you know, we, we took thedive and I mean went to trader
joe's like greater than a weekago and it was still here.
I'm surprised it lasted thatlong, but yeah, there's that.
(30:47):
So processed foods aresomething to think twice about
if you can afford.
Unfortunately, they're oftenmore affordable than the other
foods, which is a damn shame,and they last longer, which is
also more convenient becauseproduce does not keep that well,
I don't know what your stanceon, on, uh, frozen vegetables is
(31:08):
.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Um, I mean, I think it's better than not having any
vegetable at all.
But freezing it, um, I mean itchanges the.
What am I trying to say?
Like the structure of it, likethere's less.
Like the fiber is damaged whenit's frozen, so like there's not
as much in it, so like thatpart of it there it's not, um,
(31:32):
like the nutritional value isn'tas high as like a raw vegetable
or a cooked vegetable.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
But I mean it's better than nothing sure, yeah,
that because they go, they gobad, so poor.
I mean, like some of our binsare just like produce graveyards
and it.
It just happens.
It happens to anyone and likesomething to be improved on.
That's me, that's a me problem.
(31:58):
Any other thoughts before wemove on to the next segment?
Speaker 2 (32:07):
I mean salmon's mentioned in the Mediterranean
diet a lot and like is now mydiet, like my time when I go
into my diet tribe about whyyour fish should be wild caught
and not farm raised.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Oh, I think it should be.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
That's another thing that I'm particular about.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Yeah, walk us through your thoughts when it comes to
farm raised versus wild caught,anything but, in this particular
case, salmon.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Well, it's the same thing with the olive oil, like
it's just better quality andlike a healthier fish that
you're eating and like whenyou're looking in the grocery
store.
It depends what store and youknow what like brand of you know
wherever you buy your fish, butthe farm raised fish and the
wild caught fish always lookdifferent.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
They do.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
And sometimes in the farm raised fish.
It'll be like it depends.
Sometimes it's either like morepale and it's like this is like
a, a sick, sad fish that Idon't want to eat, or sometimes,
depending on the store, it'slike really red and like looks
really good, but they likeinject dye into it to make it
look more appealing to buy yeah,I feel like there's a lot of
(33:26):
documentaries about this.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
I feel like we watched one in the more now
distant past.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
So it's just.
I mean it's a bit moreexpensive.
I think salmon in general isn'tlike the most cost efficient
thing you can buy.
So, like I mean, if you'respending the money on salmon,
get the better one.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
It's all part of my plan to make Eddie live forever.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
It's working so far.
Knock on wood, so it almost.
I mean it might help in portioncontrol in some ways.
It would be more beneficial ifit was cheaper, though that's
the.
That's the rub.
Is that no one?
Yeah.
The Mediterranean diet's great,though that's the that's the
rub.
Is that no one?
Yeah, the mediterranean diet'sgreat.
no one said that it wasaffordable and reasonable, for I
(34:16):
mean to feed a family like yeah.
So we also recognize that here,where we talk about these ideal
things to do and realize that,like it's not always so
available or reasonable, butsomething to think about,
because I certainly wasn'tthinking about these things
before we started looking to buysalmon together.
(34:39):
You're welcome, I just kind ofgrabbed it and I was like, oh
yeah, here we go, no issue.
But you see those documentariesabout how they shove the fish
in the small, small areas andthe processing to try to get
them to grow as fast as possible, and like we're definitely
outside of the scope of likewhat we usually claim to be like
(35:01):
some sort of expertise here.
But well then, it's the samewith like.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
I mean red meat isn't on the Mediterranean diet, but
like a grass fed piece of meatlike that.
I don't know how to not soundlike morbid Like that meat that
you're eating was once an animalthat was like eating grass and
(35:26):
not like crap.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Right and now you're eating it, so it's like a
healthier thing that you'reeating right, like if you look
at the sort of ugly underbellyof food production, especially
when it comes to meat.
It's probably an unpleasantthing to really dig into lots of
documentaries out there aboutthat, but if this grosses you
(35:48):
out, you you know greatopportunity to lean more into
the vegetable and the legume andthe legume.
So there's a note here aboutalcohol.
It says if you drink alcohol,keep it moderate, and that
basically a small glass of winewith meals is traditional in the
Mediterranean diet, but it'sabsolutely not required for
(36:10):
health benefits Mediterraneandiet but it's absolutely not
required for health benefits.
Less is better here.
I think there's a wholecommunity of people who are at
least intrigued by the idea ofdrinking a glass of wine and
then imbuing some sort ofcardiovascular benefit years
down the line.
Culturally, I don't know whatyou're going to do at home.
It's probably not like thehealth benefits of this
(36:34):
cardiovascular maybe benefitdon't outweigh all of the other
stuff that can happen.
So my two pieces, my two centsless is better here.
It's traditional, very, verymodest.
Moderation is what I would say.
Okay.
So there's a ton of healthbenefits to the Mediterranean
(36:58):
diet itself.
It, formally well-studied andestablished, reduces the risk of
heart attack, stroke andcardiovascular disease.
That's crazy, for just I mean,yes, it's the food that goes
into your body, but this issomething that you can be
proactive about and really takea look at and say like, wow, I
(37:19):
had this conversation with mydoctor and they said my 10 year
heart attack stroke risk scoreis 25% and I see this online all
the time and they're likewhat's something I can do?
That's natural.
Incorporate some of theseelements into your diet.
I mean, it's not easy.
Behavior change takes a longtime.
(37:40):
It's a thing that is tough toincorporate consistently, but
this is something to think about.
There are legitimate benefitshere to help people, and the
benefits don't stop there.
There's evidence that it helpsprevent and manage type 2
diabetes and that it helpssupport and sustain healthy
(38:02):
weight management, and there's alot of benefits because there's
more vegetables, you have morefiber, more healthy fats, helps
contribute to your gutmicrobiome and reduce
inflammation, perhaps improvingyour metabolism.
But all in all, it's just agood idea to think about this.
This is like the mostevidence-based diet, the thing
(38:23):
pushed forward the most, and Imean there's no like big pharma
attached to this.
It's just like a bigMediterranean.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Big med.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
That could be misconstrued.
So this is all well and good.
I think we've convinced peoplethat like well, maybe not
perfect for everyone, there arecertain elements of this that
could be really helpful forsomeone's health, especially
when it comes to reducingcardiovascular risk.
Like that's the big key, onethat's always taught to us in
school and that you kind ofteach and practice.
(39:00):
But but I think a lot of timespeople go out there and like,
what can I do?
Like what are the practicalsteps that I can do to make this
happen?
Nikki?
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Can you take us through what a breakfast might
look like for someone who'sgoing through the Mediterranean
diet, thinking to make somechanges?
Speaker 2 (39:21):
Sure, we have some Greek yogurt with berries, maybe
some nuts and a drizzle ofhoney.
We've actually been doing thata lot lately.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
We have.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Or some whole grain toast with tomatoes and olive
oil.
Now I feel like I want toastwith tomatoes, and we ate all
the tomatoes that we have.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
We definitely did, and I guess I wonder, would
ricotta also fit in this,because we've been doing some of
that as well also fit in thisbecause we've been doing some of
that as well.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
I don't know how much dairy plays a part in.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
You said, dairy in moderation is where we were at,
so maybe the Greek yogurt wouldsatisfy that.
Oh yeah, but this all soundsdelicious.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
What about?
What do you think?
Yeah, I want a piece of toastwith the tomato now.
I love tomatoes.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
You do Quick aside, you know like a summer heirloom
tomato.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
I love it so much it's like my top five favorite
foods.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Is that a Jersey?
Speaker 2 (40:27):
Flaky salt?
I don't know.
Your mom's talking about Jerseytomatoes and I'm like, yeah,
mary loves a Jersey tomato.
No, I seriously love them.
Like when my boss gave me thosetomatoes from her garden last
summer, do you remember that?
That was like the happiest dayof my life and like I told her
that and I think she thought Iwas being sarcastic.
But I'm like, no, that made meso happy.
(40:50):
There were a bunch of them andevery day after work I had my
afterschool snack and it wasjust a tomato.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
It was delicious, absolutely delicious.
Um big tomato gal over here,can you take us through what a
lunch might look like forsomeone on the Mediterranean
diet?
Speaker 2 (41:05):
Sure Lunch you could have some mixed greens with some
chickpeas, more tomatoes,olives, feta and maybe a little
homemade olive oil lemondressing all right, take us
through, give us a little sample.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
You know this is a in the family recipe book.
I know I said it wrong.
It's more for the bit than itis anything.
Tell us a little bit about ahomemade dressing.
What are the staple elements todo that?
Speaker 2 (41:37):
okay, you need well, you need oil, a good quality
extra virgin olive oil, and theneither like a vinegar or a
citrus.
So either like lemon juice redwine vinegar is good usually a
two to one ish ratio of the oilto the lemon or the vinegar.
(41:57):
Whatever the like acid part isa little joj of some dijon
mustard, if you're feeling crazy, um, and then salt pepper and
then whatever other likeseasonings you want.
Could put a little like gratedParmesan cheese in there, but
(42:18):
it's really easy.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
Yeah, you broke it down there.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
It's way better for you than anything you buy in the
store that's just filled withcanola oil.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Yeah, and like God knows what else, right, yeah,
like in there um, can you keepit?
Speaker 2 (42:34):
yeah, you can keep it .
You should keep it on thecounter, though, because it'll
all just like get weird in thefridge and then you mentioned
vinegar.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
You said red wine vinegar.
Can you use any other types ofvinegar?
Speaker 2 (42:46):
oh yeah, an apple cider vinegar.
Um, there's also a dressingI've made before with like some
soy sauce in there, like somesoy sauce, apple cider vinegar
oil Dijon.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Yeah, yeah.
So it sounds like there's likea ton of variety that you can do
.
There were some fundamentalelements in there.
It sounds like you need theextra virgin olive oil, a
vinegar and the acidic componentI right to say that you're like
balsamic vinegar.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
You can put a little like zhuzh of honey in there if
you want it a little sweeterI've seen like maple syrup yeah,
that too that happened lastweek, or just this past week,
earlier in the week.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
How many times can I say week, oh my god.
Week, um, what else?
Thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
I mean hopefully we inspire some people to like
really get creative in thekitchen no, it's really so easy,
and you probably already haveall those things in your house,
and if you don't, you should getthem and become an ingredient
household, and then you can makewhatever dressing you want,
whenever you feel like it.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
Yeah, and then like you can make whatever dressing
you want, whenever you feel likeit, yeah, and then like you can
make salads interesting andcreative too.
Like you try something new anddifferent, which is awesome.
I mean, this is a hugeeye-opening experience in our
time together.
That like I love, that piece.
I love when you make a saladdressing like that Huge
endorsement, I'm really steppingoutside of my dressing before
(44:12):
my normal role here of like Ilove this stuff, the first
breakfast salad that I had,changed my life.
And you know, just for keepingfamily secrets we won't say it
on air, but like I love thebreakfast salad.
And then it's just like everyweek comes out a new salad
dressing.
I drink the stuff.
(44:33):
That's probably notMediterranean of me, but like I
take it out of the mason jar itis a problem with condiments?
Yeah, that's more of me thingthan anything else.
But guys, let me tell you thestuff is great.
Try it at home.
Transitioning here Don't eatthe whole can of chickpeas.
(44:53):
I became a hefty boy when Istarted doing that.
All the time, here and there,like there's like probably like
a serving and a half, maybe twoand a half servings in a can of
chickpeas Double check me onthat when you get the chance.
Really high in protein, Reallyhigh in fiber.
I love the chickpea itself.
I was a beefcake when I waseating chickpeas all the time,
(45:17):
unwarranted and like withoutlimit, because I thought it was
the best thing.
So everything in moderation iswhat I'm trying to say.
Even the best foods in theMediterranean diet can deserve a
little moderation.
That's my diatribe on thechickpea.
I'm also seeing whole grainpita with hummus and veggies and
(45:37):
that's a lunch.
That's a great option.
But it all starts at thegrocery store.
We can pause there for a second.
We talked about a dinner.
Can you take us through what adinner on the Mediterranean diet
might be talked?
Speaker 2 (45:52):
about a dinner.
Can you take us through what adinner on the Mediterranean diet
might be?
Sure?
Maybe, like a few times a week,you have some grilled salmon
roast, some eggplant zucchiniwith some quinoa.
This actually sounds reallygood.
I think we have quinoa in thekitchen too.
Or you can make a chicken stewNot quite sure what that entails
.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
With some tomatoes, garlic and herbs, served with
brown rice.
No notes on this Chickenincorporating the lean meat
there as opposed to a red meat,which is a great option.
I don't have any thoughts aboutdinner, but it's just another
idea for you folks out therethinking about how can I be
Mediterranean?
Everyone likes to snack.
Can you take us through acouple different ideas for what
(46:39):
you can keep in the house tosnack on?
Speaker 2 (46:42):
so yeah, fresh fruits and veggies are always a good
option to have.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
List a couple because I think like it's a very.
We've been doing a lot of handwaving, like fresh fruits and
veggies.
What can people take, pick upand like I mean, we have some of
our fruit now carrots, bellpeppers, cucumbers I feel like
the fruit is more seasonal rightnow.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
Get some like watermelon.
That's good.
We just got a good one.
I might have some tonight whilewe watch Love Island, because
we don't have any processedsweet treats in the house.
So I guess I'm going to have toeat some fruit.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
I know you're really To cure my sweet tooth.
You're really like leaning intome on this.
It's like, but you know,chocolate chips don't count for
the calories.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
And then some nuts.
So like almonds or walnuts aregood to snack on too, but also
very calorie dense.
So do with that, do with.
Can you break that down alittle?
What is like you?
Speaker 1 (47:40):
know no jargon.
Explain calorie dense.
What does that mean?
But there's a lot of caloriesfor a little bit yeah, I mean
like here I am thinking I'mgreat, oh yeah, even.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
Eddie, just like I mean you can.
If you have a little scalethat's more accurate, you can
like weigh it or measure it orcount them.
That was a sad day, but yeah,that was a sad day because Eddie
was out here eating I thinkthere were cashews like by the
handful.
It was pist sad day, but yeah,that was a sad day, because
Eddie was out here eating.
(48:13):
I think there were cashews likeby the handful.
Speaker 1 (48:14):
It was pistachios.
Oh, yeah, the pistachios andthe cashews.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
Yeah, by the fistful, you had a problem with that too
, and Eddie is not a small guy,so he doesn't have small hands,
so he was eating many servingsvery quickly.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
And it was sad when you like, broke out the scale.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
And then yeah, Cause I like pack some for your lunch,
like one serving, and you werelike wait, that's it.
This has this 120 calories, oh.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
I was mortified, yeah .
Speaker 2 (48:40):
I think he was like I'm eating 400 calories a day
Just in nuts.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Oh yeah, it's a miracle that my weight, like,
stays the same or behaves theway it does.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
Yeah, that's so crazy Wow.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
Anyway, must be so nice.
And as we talk about all thesefoods, it all starts at the
grocery store, and so when yougo there and you're making your
decisions, maybe plan ahead orknow what you're going to pick
out, because now you've got acouple options and a couple meal
plans for the week to getcreative, and there's recipes
all over the place.
(49:12):
But there are a fewfundamentals that we want to
share with you, that we'vetalked about the episode, but we
want to put them in a moreitemized list for you, so we'll
go back and forth here.
But here are a couple keythings to think about when
getting started with theMediterranean diet.
Number one fill about half yourplate with vegetables at lunch
and dinner.
I mean, look at the circle,half dedicate to all those
(49:38):
vegetables.
I don't think a lot of peopledo that.
Maybe they do, maybe I'm I mean, even sometimes my portions are
off.
I'm like, yeah, let's put allthat meat and let's get the,
even when it's like rice andchicken and vegetables like
pasta Eddie four bowls pasta.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
Eddie, four bowls, a roof it's my family's name.
I've been calling him Eddiefour bowls for the last couple
of days because he had fourbowls of pasta.
Speaker 1 (50:08):
Look, it's delicious.
Can you take us through numbertwo?
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Swap your butter for olive oil yeah, easy win right
there.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
Number three choose a whole grain over refined ones.
I think, uh, whole grainmeaning like you can just
literally see the name wholegrain on the the bread, but, um,
a refined one would be what?
Like a standard, standard whitebread.
Is that right?
I'll just take them from here.
Plan fish meals, maybe twice aweek, and that goes back to
(50:39):
going to the grocery store,making your plan ahead of time.
Maybe you plan to have somefish more than one time during
the week and see how that goesfor you.
You can use herbs and spicesinstead of salt.
At some point we're going totalk about the dash diet, but
you can still make fooddelicious even without a lot of
sodium and finish your mealswith fruit instead of sweets.
(51:00):
So you know, even like you weresaying tonight, you're probably
going to lean into thewatermelon for a dessert Not as
fun, perhaps, as an ice cream,but if you do get a watermelon
and you're in the right frame ofmind, you might have the best
watermelon you've ever had inyour life.
So just keep an open mind.
You know who you are if you'relistening to this and you
(51:21):
understand what that bit was.
So I'm just going to deliversome final thoughts about the
Mediterranean diet.
It isn't just healthy, it'sprobably enjoyable, sustainable
and really backed by some of thestrongest evidence that we have
in nutrition science.
At the end of the day, it helpsprotect your heart, your brain,
your weight and, because it'sso delicious, maybe it makes you
(51:46):
happier.
It's not about cutting out food.
It's all about nourishing yourbody in delicious ways to be
able to improve your health.
I don't know if you need totalk to your doctor before doing
this, because it's prettystandard and a nice thing to do,
but maybe it's a nice idea totalk to your doctor, or maybe
talk to a dietician if youaren't sure which way you need
(52:06):
to head.
But, most importantly, thanksfor coming back to another
episode of your Checkup.
Hopefully you were able tolearn something for yourself, a
loved one or a neighbor.
Find us on our website.
Send us some fan mail.
We love to interact with ourcommunity.
Send us an email atyourcheckuppod at gmailcom.
But, most importantly, stayhealthy, my friends.
(52:29):
Until next time.
I'm Ed Dolesky.
I'm Nicola Rufo.
Thank you and goodbye.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
Bye.
Speaker 1 (52:42):
This information may provide a brief overview of
diagnosis, treatment andmedications.
It's not exhaustive and is atool to help you understand
potential options about yourhealth.
It doesn't cover all detailsabout conditions, treatments or
medications for a specificperson.
This is not medical advice oran attempt to substitute medical
advice.
You should contact a healthcare provider for personalized
guidance based on your uniquecircumstances.
(53:03):
We explicitly disclaim anyliability relating to the
information given or its use.
This content doesn't endorseany treatments or medications
for a specific patient.
Always talk to your healthcareprovider for complete
information tailored to you.
In short, I'm not your doctor,I am not your nurse, and make
sure you go get your own checkupwith your own personal doctor.
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