The Mediterranean diet has outlived a plethora of its faddy counterparts to play a key role in helping us to understand how to eat healthily. Now a Greek research team have been awarded by the Community of Mediterranean Universities for their efforts to define and safeguard the "traditional" mediterranean diet.

The abundant consumption of plant foods and olive oil, the moderate amounts of wine and scanty doses of red meat making up the Mediterranean diet pyramid, as detailed by Oldways in association with Harvard School of Public Health, is acknowledged worldwide as a prime example of a healthy nutrition. Still, for team leader and academic Antonio Trichopoulou these rediscovered nutritional habits raise the question of how to promote and protect traditional Greek cuisine's authenticity - both in local restaurants and stores as well as abroad where the demand for high quality traditional products is on the rise.

While research groups continue to conduct studies on how certain foods protect the body from sickness (work is underway on antioxidants, on how olive oil hampers the development of breast cancer cells as well as on the increase of lipids in the blood after food intake), Trichopoulou is pushing for legislation that will protect the term "traditional product" from abuse, especially in view of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. Though the Greek food industry has not shown much interest, Trichopoulou has been collaborating with the agriculture ministry to draft a plan safeguarding the terms "traditional product" and "traditional diet".

Actually, Trichopoulou is interested in developing a framework in which the maintenance, promotion and protection of the Mediterranean diet's principles will be implemented. She is keen on creating videotaped records of traditional recipes so as to capture the secrets inherited from generations of Greek housewives. Moreover, young chefs, she suggested in an interview with daily Kathimerini, need to be trained to cook with Greek principles instead of persisting to create bad versions of French cuisine drowned in cream.

Promoting healthy delicacies
The world has already tuned into the value of foods such as spinach pies, chickpea patties, eggplant dishes, candied fruit, pasteli and other traditional Greek foods. Still, as Trichopoulou underscores, it is essential to know that real pasteli is made of honey and not glucose, while traditional yoghurt is free of the additives normally included so as to prevent water loss and make the product last a month in the refrigerator. For its part, the abundant use of olive oil also secures the consumption of ample quantities of vegetables, since Greek vegetable dishes cooked in olive oil have been traditionally consumed as a main course.

In keeping up with the times, Trichopoulou is also keen on promoting traditional alternatives for the fast food industry. There is no better quick snack than a well-made cheese or spinach pie, she says, but one made with specific guidelines not just in terms of technique but also in terms of raw products and quality control.

According to Trichopoulou, careful planning and research must also be conducted in the effort to semi-industrialise the traditional food market, thus guaranteeing that large quantities of good foods can be produced without sacrificing quality. To this end, a quality certificate programme has been established for restaurants that cook in agreement with the rules of Mediterranean diet, i.e. with olive oil, Greek feta cheese and Greek wine.