The Culinary wisdom spans the centuries and comes to us with a rich diet, healthy, simple, varied and complete. Olive oil, bread, pasta, pulses, milk and cheese, fruit, greens and vegetables, fish and meat alternatives are the foods most representative of traditional Mediterranean food, a tradition that even in the most industrialized countries is now proposed as an ideal model of alimentation. In the Mediterranean diet the olive oil occupies a place of primary importance because it is the main source of fat, and it is the energy reserve that serves our body to perform vital functions. Take fat is essential for good nutrition, but you need to know how to select the type of fat better for our metabolism. Olive oil is the best fat becouse it is vegetal, natural and it is composed mainly of monounsaturated fatty acids which are highly digestible to help maintain a high level of "good" cholesterol HDL and reduce the effects of "bad" cholesterol LDL come the occlusion of the arteries.

Good Nutrition

A healthy diet provides calories in a balanced way: 58% from carbs - 12% protein - 30% from fat
The Mediterranean diet can be really an ideal model of alimentation, because it provides carbohydrates, proteins and fats respectively in the form of - starch-based foods - lean meats and fish - olive oil with vegetables. Olive oil in particular, provides fat in the best shape for the body, that is, in the form of monounsaturated fatty acids.

The benefits of the Mediterranean diet

The Mediterranean diet is indicated by the modern science of nutrition as an ideal model of supply:
- He olive oil as the main source of lipids
- Has nutritional values close to the ideal
- Offers the advantages to enrich the flavour of every dish

Olive oil as a source of lipids
In the Mediterranean diet the main source of fat is olive oil. Olive oil than other animal fats or vegetable fats brings in a far more salutary is composed mostly of monounsaturated fatty acids, and this provides a number of benefits for the health of our bodies - a substantial balance between "good" cholesterol (HDL that carried by lipoproteins, which acts as a "scavenger of the arteries") and "bad" (who is transported by lipoproteins LDL). - As a highly digestible fatty acids - a source of vitamins and help in the absorption of vitamins in other foods- the Olive oil is also valuable as a cooking fat, just because it is rich in monounsaturated fatty acids that resist heat better.

Nutritional values close to the ideal
The daily requirement of calories is expressed not only in the amount of calories needed to live, but also in the quality of the diet, that is the way the calories are made: The calorie intake is best met by a balanced diet where approximately 58% of calories comes from carbohydrates, 12% protein, 30% from fat. The Mediterranean diet adds calories with these average percentages: Protein - 15%, Carbohydrates - 60%, fat - 25% values near excellent!

The advantages of the "main dish"
Foods typical of the Mediterranean Countries are also suitable easily form the "main dishes", that is able to provide yourself the nutrient supply of the usual "first" and "second", replacing them effectively and economically in a single flow. Typical examples: pasta and beans (or chickpeas or lentils), stew with potatoes, pasta with meat sauce and cheese, vegetable soups with grated cheese, pizza, etc.. And It is just the addition of fresh vegetables and fruit to make a balanced meal from a nutritional standpoint.