Mediterranean Diet

The Mediterranean diet is a dietary pattern modeled on traditional eating habits observed in Mediterranean populations. Although there is no single universal menu, common descriptions emphasize vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, whole grains, and olive oil, with regular fish and relatively smaller amounts of red and processed meat. The pattern is defined by the overall combination of foods rather than one ingredient .^1,2

Different research scores operationalize the Mediterranean diet in different ways. Some assess how closely a person's intake resembles a set of food-group targets, while newer definitions may also recognize culinary practices and broader lifestyle features associated with Mediterranean traditions. This means that a Mediterranean diet score in one study is not necessarily identical to a score in another .^1,2

The term should not be interpreted as meaning that every food eaten in countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea belongs to the pattern, nor that there is one historically fixed version. Modern Mediterranean populations eat diverse diets, and the scientific construct is an abstraction built from recurring features of traditional dietary patterns. It is therefore more accurate to think of the Mediterranean diet as a family of related food-pattern models than as a rigid list of permitted foods .^1,2