The Mediterranean diet – What are Blue Zones?

When devising our food workshop programmes, we like to make sure that we keep our themes interesting and engaging for all types of cooks. We also like to look at food trends or movements that might be appealing and stimulating and not just for the tastebuds.

One trend that keeps coming up is The Mediterranean Diet and Blue Zones. Our next workshop explores just that. While developing the workshop we had to do our own research to find out more – we’ll be sharing that in the workshop. But here is a summary of some of the things we found out about Blue Zones.

There are a lot of articles written about this approach to food and life. While we are not experts or trained dieticians, we do promote eating a sustainable diet that is good for the planet. This approach seems to fit well with The Blue Zone’s way of eating.

Blue Zone is not a scientific term but refers to parts of the world where people have experienced longevity and good health. The Mediterranean has two of the world’s five Blue Zones, Ikaria in Greece, and Sardinia in Italy (other areas are in Japan, California, and Costa Rica). What they all have in common is diet – eating lots of fruit and vegetables (especially strong coloured ones like squashes and peas). NHS UK advocates that we should eat at least 5 portions of fruit and veg per day. This is also the thread that connects eating more fruit and veg to sustainability…there are many benefits!

Beans and pulses are a plant-based protein and have lots of fibre. Chickpeas, lentils, and beans are popular in both Greece and Italy. Wholegrains are also common and contain lots of fibre. Unsaturated fats obtained from olive oils, nuts, and oil rich fish are also used a lot in these areas. Fermented foods are also eaten in bread form or from fermented foods and drinks such as kimchi and kombucha. We covered that recently in our two ‘Adventures in Fermentation’ sessions. Water consumption is also high in these areas. This approach suggests the consumption of fresh and seasonal ingredients like fruit and vegetables, legumes, olive oil and wholegrains can do a lot of good.

Other factors such as exercise and movement, strong social networks, and regular sleep are also said to contribute towards the Blue Zone approach.

We will explore this in more detail at our next cooking workshop, A taste of the Mediterranean – Exploring the Blue Zone way of life. We chose dishes that reflect some of the thinking around the Blue Zone approach in our workshop:

• Minestrone longevity soup – made with seasonal vegetables, beans, and olive oil.

• Briam – Greek mixed roasted vegetables. (Briam is part of the lathera family of foods – vegetables cooked in oil using fresh and clean flavourings like garlic and herbs)

• Flatbreads – quick pita breads made with yoghurt.

You will also sample an herbal tea that is drunk in Greece We’ll also demonstrate an easy bean and artichoke dip. We hope to see you there!