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good morning i just read the coolest news u.s news and world report has awarded spain's mediterranean diet best overall diet in the world four years in a row beating out almost 60 different competitors pretty big deal and people ask me the same kinds of questions what do you eat in spain what makes it so healthy so i thought it'd be fun to chat a little bit about that to start off the season right [Music] it is great to know we are not the only ones that understand how healthy it is to eat and live in spain so before i get into a season full of tasty recipes i thought it'd be a good idea just to go over how they eat in spain i won't talk about the six different meal times we'll save that for another time but i wanted to talk about the fundamentals of the mediterranean diet there's five basic areas of ways to think about food and how to fill the plate and there's four founding principles of things to do before you even get to sit down for a meal the first is make sure you get some exercise every single day it can be a stroll around the block after a meal that's what they call a paseo here in spain and it's a very popular thing to do second make sure you stay hydrated with plenty of water it's core to having balanced life and a balanced diet the third the lifeblood of spain extra virgin olive oil it's one of the heart healthiest fats you can possibly add to your diet and you're going to see all season long oftentimes i'll start with olive oil in a recipe and i'll end with olive oil in a recipe that's how popular it is and the final part of this puzzle is just how important shared table social time and interaction is to the spaniards and that's one of the things that has made it so hard during covet times because what spanish people are used to is sharing that meal with each other they even have a period called a sobre mesa which is about the hour after the meal that you don't get up or rush out and get your check and head out of the restaurant you sit for about an hour and visit and enjoy each other's company so those are the four foundations next we're going to get into looking at how to fill a dinner plate with the core ingredients that make up the mediterranean diet extra virgin olive oil may be the core of the mediterranean diet but what else should you know about this healthy diet oftentimes people describe the mediterranean diet as a pyramid i find for myself it's a whole lot easier to think of a dinner plate like this with five segments both by size and by what's in them that help guide how we build a meal and how much we put on our plates in all cases you're going to be looking at mostly economical ways of eating really healthy ways of eating seasonal ways of eating and if when you can't get that things like frozen foods that's perfectly fine one way or another we'll piece together each one of these segments and over the next few minutes you'll have a perfectly clear idea of how to follow the way spain eats and lives every day [Music] very first segment i'd like to talk about are fruits vegetables and olive oil and you can see from the layout of the plate and the guidelines in the mediterranean diet that this is an enormous part of what you should be eating every single day it's no big surprise this is typical in spain because spain is considered the fruit and vegetable basket of europe we get everything from bananas and the canary islands to rice right up the coastline from me here in valencia the most important part about this segment is it's very nutrient rich it's loaded with fiber an incredible amount of color for me all different kinds of flavor and it makes it easy to incorporate this into your diet importantly you really ought to do it at every meal every day figure out a way to put some of that onto your plate [Music] the second segment of the mediterranean way to eat every day is just as large as the fruit and vegetable section but includes some of my favorites whole grains bread potatoes rice protein packed beans lentils nuts seeds all of these things help make a foundation on the plate for whatever kind of dish you're doing and i think over the past year everyone has embraced the idea of pantry staples like beans legumes lentils garbanzos because all those things are both economical they're easy to store and they're loaded with protein so when you're thinking about that diet make sure you're putting these things into the mix every day a couple of times a day the third slice of the pie to eat the mediterranean whey every day is getting pretty skinny it's not nearly as large as the other two but is just as important because this includes yogurt cheese milk eggs all protein packed ingredients very economical and super simple to prepare and to use in your diet like yogurt with fresh fruit an omelette with a bunch of vegetables one of the most popular things in spain is to have a tortilla espanola i've already done a recipe on that and that's simply potatoes and eggs into an omelette so when you think about these kinds of things don't think of them just for breakfast you can think of them for any time of day lunch or dinner just don't think of them too often two three times a week the fourth part of the mediterranean way to eat every day includes fish and poultry of course no big surprise the mediterranean sea is right here and they pull fish out of it every morning i can go to the mercado and get all kinds of different types of fish but i understand too you may not be able to do that and that's okay because if you've got access to frozen fish or canned tuna or canned salmon you're golden as long as you add this to your diet two to three times a week you're following the mediterranean way the very final wedge on the mediterranean plate includes what i refer to as meats and sweets it's small for two reasons one spaniards don't eat very much of this in fact once a week every couple of weeks is plenty and when they do eat it they don't eat great big portions of this small amounts of meat that are added to bean dishes like stews or soups a ham hock that you'd throw in with a split pea soup dish that's about the level of how much meat is eaten and primarily because it adds a huge amount of flavor but you don't have to have all the downside of that by having too much of it you can make the most of the flavor when you combine it with other things as far as desserts go i'm a bit of a chocolate freak and chocolate's okay on this diet but i will also tell you it's just as typical for a spaniard to have a piece of fresh fruit after a meal as it is to have a slice of cake in fact it's much more likely to have a piece of fresh fruit so that summarizes it but now let's talk about few incidentals that don't actually appear on that circle but that are very much a part of the diet as well there are three other things about spanish lifestyle and diet didn't actually make it on this plate and the first is a glass of red wine you'll see that written in mediterranean diets it's perfectly permissible one a day you don't have to have it if you don't want to just know that that option is there a second thing to think about is make sure when you look down at that plate that it's filled with color that it's balanced well it's got plenty of protein and mostly that it's got a lot of flavor that's what spaniards are awesome at doing they take humble ingredients they might be ordinary and they make them into extraordinary dishes and the final point is make certain when you sit down to eat if you've got the option to do it with friends and family that is very much the mediterranean way enjoy each other's company and enjoy the food at the same time during the upcoming season i hope you get the chance to join me while i turn theory into practice making some incredibly tasty dishes all based on spain's amazingly healthy mediterranean lifestyle
