Few diets have earned the gold star for health quite like the Mediterranean diet, an eating style that emphasizes plant foods like veggies and whole grains, as well as fish and olive oil, and dials back red meat and added sugars. This approach has been shown to ward off various age-related diseases of the heart and brain, and even extend your lifespan. But what if it could get even healthier?
That’s the premise behind the green-Mediterranean diet, which a team of researchers first devised a few years ago by zeroing in on the parts of the Med diet they suspected were most impactful. A handful of nutrition studies pointed them toward the major role of polyphenols, a type of antioxidant in plant foods with potent anti-inflammatory powers. “So we looked to explore whether further reducing red and processed meats and enriching the diet with plant polyphenols could potentially amplify its benefits,” Iris Shai, PhD, an adjunct professor of nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and one of the researchers in the team who developed the green-Med diet, tells SELF.
Beyond emphasizing plant foods and minimizing processed items (like the classic Med diet), the green-Med diet involves cutting out red and processed meats entirely and only allows for fish and poultry in limited amounts. To pump up those helpful polyphenols, it also includes three daily components: 3 to 4 cups of green tea, a plant-based protein shake (made with 100 grams of Mankai, a type of duckweed or nutrient-rich aquatic plant), and an ounce of walnuts. These foods were chosen for the trial to serve as case studies, Dr. Shai says, not necessarily because they’re the three healthiest plant products. (Of note: The Mankai was provided by the Israeli company Hinoman, for which Dr. Shai is an advisor, and the study was funded in part by the California Walnuts Commission.)
The results of the 18-month trial would confirm the researchers’ suspicion: Among people at cardiometabolic risk, those who followed the green-Med diet showed bigger improvements in heart-related metrics like cholesterol levels and blood pressure, and less evidence of brain aging via MRI scans than their peers who followed a traditional Med diet or were just given healthy dietary guidance.
Read on to learn why the green-Med diet may be even healthier than the OG for some people, plus how to fit it into your lifestyle.
Why the green-Med diet may offer greater health benefits than the broader Mediterranean diet
The extra heart-related perks may be partly the result of just eating even more plants and fewer packaged foods and animal products, Cara Harbstreet, MS, RD, LD, who owns Street Smart Nutrition, in Kansas City, and was not involved in the green-Med trial, tells SELF. That means you’re loading up on fiber, vitamins, and minerals while also lessening your intake of sodium and saturated fats—a double whammy of heart-supportive choices, she points out.
