Both the keto diet and the Mediterranean diet have been shown to offer powerful health benefits. Yet, for many people, a typical keto diet can seem overly restricting, extreme, or downright scary.
This fear is linked to decades of misinformation about possible (but largely debunked) health risks of red meat and saturated fat. It can be hard for people to accept that keto-friendly plates of fatty steak drenched in butter, and lattes brimming with heavy cream are good for them.
On the other hand, the nutritional establishment has spent the last 50 years valorizing the high-carbohydrate veggies, whole grains, and fruits that are common in the Mediterranean diet.
Dubious “healthy” claims aside, these high-carb whole foods are probably an improvement to the highly processed grain and added sugars at the center of the Standard American Diet.
However, high-carb foods cut off Mediterranean dieters from the rapid weight loss, and proven impacts that keto diets have on cancer [1] , neurological diseases including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s [2] , type 1 and type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, and cardiovascular disease. [3]
When we combine keto and Mediterranean, the outcome is a way of eating that can be more comfortable and sustainable than a typical keto diet.
A keto Mediterranean diet is full of staples that most people think of as healthy like olive, fish, red wine, fresh cheese, yogurt, and low-carb veggies. Yet it still provides the powerful metabolic benefits of restricting carbs and running on ketones.
The popularity of the Mediterranean diet can be traced back to the famous Seven Countries Study, by nutritionist Ansel Keys in 1967.
The study was motivated by the new and alarming incidence of heart disease in American middle-aged men.
Keys and a team of international researchers looked at the diets of 13,000 men in the U.S. Japan, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Yugoslavia, and Finland. They found that men from Greece, Crete, and Italy had the lowest rates of heart disease.
The team correlated these findings with the Mediterranean diet’s focus on vegetables, grains, beans, fruit, and fish. Whereas the diets in U.S., Netherlands, and Finland where heart disease was the highest, were high in processed foods and animal fats.
Keys’ study has led to scores of follow-up research aimed at exploring his findings, though much of it tailored to support his views. However, some recent high-quality randomized control trials along with critical analysis of past studies give us confidence in the following findings:
It’s important to note that in each of these studies there was no causal link between vegetables, fruits, and positive outcomes.
Most benefits were likely due to eating whole foods instead of processed junk and getting fat from healthy sources, including olive oil, fish, fresh dairy, and moderately healthy nuts.
The macronutrient ratio of a Mediterranean diet depends on what you consider to be the real Mediterranean diet.
The typical Mediterranean diet promoted by American nutritionists has a macro breakdown of:
However, leading Mediterranean researcher Dr. Antonia Trichopoulou found that a traditional Greek diet is “moderate fat” as opposed to low fat, with 40% carbs, 40% fat, and 20% protein.
Her study found these traits:
Regional staples of the traditional Mediterranean diet include:
NOTE: Red meat, sugar-sweetened beverages, added sugars, processed foods, refined grains, and refined oils are all rare, and should be avoided.
The ketogenic diet (keto for short), is a low-carb, high-fat way of eating.
A ketogenic diet means limiting carbohydrate intake to less than 50 grams per day (often to less than 20) while allowing adequate amounts of protein and a higher fat intake. This usually breaks down to around:
Restricting carbs triggers your body to switch from using glucose for fuel, to breaking down fat from your food and from stores on your body. The liver turns this fat into highly efficient fuel molecules called ketones. When enough ketones are circulating in your body, you are in the metabolic state called ketosis.
As the most searched diet on Google with 25.4 million searches in 2020 alone, science is trying to keep up. Recent studies have shown that a keto diet can:
The majority of calories on a keto diet come from high-fat staples, including:
Vegan and Vegetarian Keto Staples that can be included in Typical keto:
Keto cuts out all:
Key similarities between keto and Mediterranean diets worth noting are:
Simply put, a keto Mediterranian diet takes all the keto-friendly foods found in a traditional Mediterranean diet and constructs an eating plan that meets the keto low-carb, high-fat macronutrient ratios.
Key Features of a typical Mediterranean keto diet include:
To get a better idea of what this looks like, let’s dive into the impressive study looking at the benefits of what researchers called the Spanish Keto Mediterranean Diet (SKMD). [19]
The caloric intake was not restricted during the three-month trial involving 22 obese men. The meals consisted of:
After 12 weeks the study found that on average:
It is interesting to note that though most participants were still on the lower scale of obesity after 12 weeks, their metabolic syndrome was completely cured. This tells us that it wasn’t losing weight that cured the metabolic disease. Rather, these dramatic metabolic changes can be attributed to the power of the diet itself.
Some people gravitate to the Mediterranean keto diet because it offers many fat and protein alternatives to red meat while making space for a variety of vegetables.
But there’s also good news for people wanting to reap the superfood benefits of red meat and organ meats while enjoying the heart-healthy benefits of Mediterranean eating.
A 2018 study found that adding up to 18 ounces of fresh red meat to Mediterranean-style eating, is just as effective at improving heart disease risk factors including blood pressure and total and LDL cholesterol, as a meat-limiting Mediterranean diet. [22]
Coming up with a keto Mediterranean diet plan isn’t hard. Here are a few sample meal ideas.
Mediterannean keto Greek keto frittata. Loaded with healthy fat from eggs, plain full-fat yogurt, feta and mozzarella cheese, and olive oil. Brought to the next level of Mediterranean flavor with pepper, fresh oregano, basil, zucchini, and a modest amount of diced tomatoes.
Five-minute Mediterranian keto bacon lettuce wraps will keep you fueled when you’re on the go. Bacon, avocado, labneh (Middle Eastern cheese from strained full-fat yogurt), mayonnaise (olive oil-based), fresh basil, lemon juice, salt, pepper.
Salmon with olive oil (lots), fresh rosemary, salt, and pepper. Or apply these dressings while making the most of your red meat night with decadent lamb chops.
The Mediterranean Keto diet takes Mediterranean staples like fresh unprocessed seafood, low-carb veggies, olive oil, full-fat dairy, and red wine, and tailors them to a keto macronutrient ratio.
Most people are already familiar with the benefits of a Mediterranean diet that replaces processed foods with fresh whole foods.
A Mediterranean keto diet takes these benefits and adds the dramatic improvements associated with ketogenic diets. These include protection against neurodegenerative diseases, many forms of cancer, metabolic disease, insulin resistance, and infertility.
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