 The New York Times just endorsed the Mediterranean diet as the best in the entire world, but let's talk about why everybody's arguing and it just kind of is getting political. The Mediterranean diet really is that good for you. Here's why I just had a Greek solid for lunch. We got to talk about it. Andrew, this sparked a bunch of political debates and maybe it even is tied to why nobody can agree on anything in America in 2024. So make sure you like, subscribe and turn on notifications. But do you know what fits within a very delicious diet? Drizzle small sauce onto your food to make it taste better. It will add a little bit of mala and aromatics to any dish. Check it out. Hey, from Sichuanas, Sicily. Andrew, Sicily, part of the Mediterranean. Wow, is this part of the Mediterranean diet? Honestly, this was not that good of an article by the New York Times because they were basically saying, yeah, the Mediterranean diet is so good for you. Everybody should adopt it. And of course, Andrew, this sparked a lot of feelings from a lot of people. A lot of what we're not even related to diet. Right. But also I just feel like it depends on what your goals are and that should determine what diet you should eat. Obviously, what is available? What are your goals? Do you want to get buff? Do you want to just stay thin? Do you just want to lose weight? I don't know. There's like a million different ways to get everything done. And there's a million ways to basically just eat lean and clean. But I just don't know why the New York Times was like, yeah, the Mediterranean, the best one. It's rich in fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, lean proteins and healthy fats. They have a protective effect on your cardiovascular health. Now, David, people did point out that there was a lot of inconsistencies with this article. What is considered Mediterranean? Are they talking about avocados and salmon, two things that are actually not that common in the Mediterranean? They don't even exist. Right. So then a lot of people are like, wait, what's up with this article? What is it? What is it even the Mediterranean diet now? Like you like, you know? Yeah, basically people were pointing out that Americans conception of the Mediterranean diet is based off researchers going to Greek and Italian islands in the 1950s studying lower middle class Fisher villages. Basically, that's what their diet was to a 10 out of 10 level. And then basically bring it over to America and then replacing out items that obviously didn't exist in the Mediterranean, such as salmon and avocado. This sounds pretty outdated. If you're talking about the 1950s, guys, I'm not going to lie. There's been a lot of health discovery since then. And not only I Andrew, almost everybody was thin back then because there really wasn't a lot of processed food in existence. Right. Right. Right. So yeah, anyway, we're going to get into it. Why is this such a Western debate? Like, Andrew, shouldn't it just be like, eat less food, eat better food, walk more, eat lean green and clean? Like, why does it need to have like a region of superiority stamped on it? And I'm really surprised that New York Times even try to like pick a region. Well, well, it's not even that New York Times try to come up with a good diet. It says that there's nothing new that they said like they really did not they they made this article almost like the de facto diet. Here we go guys. And everybody's like, yeah, we're doing new this like everybody's been talking about this stuff for like decades. What are you talking about? It's not even it is true and it's not true. It food gets political because your diet and what you grow up eating is oftentimes tied to your culture. David, Asians eat a lot of rice over the past decade. It is true. A lot of people have come out and a lot of true science has said that maybe you shouldn't eat that much rice. A lot of Asians have lived very healthy lives eating rice all the time now. But maybe there's other things about their lifestyle that allowed them to be very healthy. Or maybe rice isn't that bad for you. I don't know really. A lot of people were pointing out Andrew Okinawans actually live longer and healthier than Mediterranean's. But how come the New York Times didn't endorse the Okinawan diet? Right. Because what if a New York Times released the Okinawan diet, the best diet in the world? You know what I mean? Then people are Asians. We've got to listen to the Asians and stuff like that. Basically gets political because your region of food or your culture of where you come from has certain dishes that are of that culture. And now you're being told that those are inferior to your health. While I'll be honest, obviously there are certain foods we all know are worse for your health if you eat it in high amounts. But there are people of every culture who have lived very long healthy lives. That is true. Yeah. I guess if they would have called it the 1950s Greek Islander diet, would that have been way more logical? Because that's what they were eating in the 1950s in the Greek islands. Eat like a fisherman in the 1950s. That's what you're trying to say. Wow. Extremely easy for us to do nowadays. Yeah. I mean, honestly, I think that the reason why like the comments section like devolves into this crazy like tribalistic wars or whatever in 2024 between vegans versus meat eaters, Hindus versus Muslims on whether or not to be for pork. What else was in there? African Americans were very angry that obviously the New York Times is endorsing another, you know, white European diet as superior man. Oh, Andrew, some women were mad in the comments section that the study in that from the 1950s only focused on men. Great job, New York Times. You guys really knocked it out of the ballpark with this one. Yeah. David, what do people like you've done a lot of research. Everybody's done a lot of research. You guys let us know in the comments down below if you've done research on actually how to lose weight and live a healthy life. But what is the easiest, simplest thing that people need to just know about dieting? Just seco. C I C O calories in calories out. Basically, you just have a calorie number that is your maintenance. You can either go in a surplus or you can go in a deficit. You want to lose weight, you go in a deficit. You want to gain weight, you go in a surplus, you want to maintain your stay on maintenance. Now, where do you get those calories from? It does matter to arterial health, cardiovascular health. You know what I mean? Like sodium, blood pressure, right? Getting getting all your calories throughout the day just from French fries only is not exactly the same as getting your calories from a bunch of fruits, veggies and meat. Right, right. Nutrient dense food. But, but as far as losing weight, calories in calories out is going to be the main factor, but that doesn't mean you're super healthy. Right, right. So basically, I guess what this study was talking about was that arterial health is really good in that region due to olive oil increasing blood flow or something like that. Like basically, but it is true. Basically, if you just eat lean, clean and green, or if you just eat less, eat better and walk more, you will be fine if you follow those essentially literally just those two things that rhyme. Those sound pretty simple, but I guess America can't do it. They just can't do it. Like we said, there's all this tribalism in the comment section. Anyway, let's get into the comment section Andrew. It turned into an argument about European socialism versus American capitalism. Oh, guess what? They get free healthcare over there. They get mandatory paid vacations because it is true, Andrew, in Europe they take more vacay time because they take more like trains and they walk more because I guess the cities are more dense, right? Even though they're shorter, there's less skyscrapers. And then people were just talking about the economies. But I guess what I'm saying is like America, you can make a lot of money, but it is true that interestingly enough, America is the richest country. There's a lot of process things here too, right? Because a lot of the commercial food industry here, they want to make money off the production of food. Right. Like it's privatized. Right, right, right. But I guess they're saying in Europe a lot of things are like farm to table because that's like they never like really hypercommercialize their food industries. So I guess, I don't know. And then people are arguing about that. Of course, Andrew, people are arguing about the definition of the Mediterranean diet because how can the Mediterranean diet in 2024 and America mean avocados and salmon? Those don't even exist in the Mediterranean. Like people on the Mediterranean might never have even eaten those things. Yeah. I mean, I guess is this is this just an American, Andrew, like wrong interpretation of like, you know, like Americans have bad geography where they're just like, yeah, those Mediterranean's, that's what they eat. Yeah, I think so. I think it was almost like had this person been to the Mediterranean to write this article or something. I don't know. Yeah. What do you think about people arguing over beef, Andrew? There's a big argument over the raising of cattle right now from everything from their farts, creating methane, burning away the Earth's ozone to like obviously some people have religious things against beef, some people have religious things against pork hormones. And I think it's more of a, I think the issue is not really that it's just cows in itself or red meat or like, you know, red meat is actually not as bad for you if you just don't eat a insane amount of it. Like I think if you eat a insane amount of just apples, you're going to gain weight because apples have a lot of calories. Everybody always says, oh, don't drink orange juice. Orange juice has nothing good for you because there's no pulpit in there's just a bunch of sugar. And I'm just like, well, you can't eat too much of anything. Ultimately, that's ultimately what it don't eat too much rice, don't eat too much pasta, don't eat too much oranges, don't eat too much chicken. But it is true that certain things like for example, lean beef is much more nutrient dense than orange juice. Sure. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's more filling, right? So theoretically you eat less because your body cannot even. Also, I think a lot of people tend to think like if you're the type of person that eats a lot of meat, how are you cooking that meat? Are you frying it? Are you burning it? Are you barbecuing it? So there's all these carcinogens. Are you covering it in batter, which is carbs, right? Yeah, are you like, what else are you eating it with? Yeah, if you're just like boiling meat, that's probably a pretty healthy way to eat it, to be honest, but that's not appealing to a lot of people. All right, this next comment section getting spicy for New York Times, I'm telling you. Somebody said, my soul food diet has gotten my ancestors through slavery and is doing perfectly fine by me. A lot of arguing about health outcomes. And then somebody said, I hope we can realize that this sort of headline is not without consequence. Exalting one region's pattern of eating as the best doesn't do much to honor various cultures and preferences. We should reconsider this whitewash nutrition reporting. I don't even like taking the politics out of it in the cultural list out of it, obviously, because as an Asian person, as a Chinese person, I can easily say, oh, they're being like, how come they're putting the men attorney and diet over the Japanese or the Chinese diet or the Korean diet? You know what I mean? Where people live healthy over there. It's like, it's not really about like, even the diet. Yeah, the girl could eat soul food. But yeah, if you eat too much soul food is not going to be good for you. But if you, maybe she doesn't eat too much, and maybe she has a high metabolism, so it's fine for her. You know what I mean? So it's just like, it can work so many different ways. And I understand why like, people just want, this is the classic like American healthcare where it's like, hey, this is a good diet. You should just eat this. But it's like, if you eat too much hummus, pita and olive oil, and you just sit there and you don't move, you're going to get fat too. Right. I mean, if you go to Italy right now, there's probably people slicing Iberico pork on everything. And they're Mediterranean. Yeah, eating pizzas. Pizzas are incredibly caloric dense. Yeah. It's just like super caloric. It's just about what else you're doing with your life and how much you're eating. Somebody said, guess what? I got bad news for you Mediterranean diet lovers. Andrew fish is high in heavy metals and nanoplastics because the oceans are polluted or the fish go through high stress and salmon farms in Norway where they're all crammed up together, you know, and those like big tanks or whatever those nets. So that's even bad for you because then you're going to get all the stress from the animal. Dude, everything can be bad for you. Everything is good and everything is bad. I don't know. This person said, try all you can. You can't beat your genetics. Enjoy. Eat what you enjoy. I kind of actually disagree with this. It's true. If you eat a lot of caloric dense foods that have no nutrients, that's generally not a good way to live your life. Like if you eat foods that are really low in nutrients like macronutrients or micronutrients and then that is really caloric dense, it's not going to fill you up and it's going to pull you full of calorie caloric surplus and a lot of actually. All right. So yes, most diseases in America are related to caloric surplus. Right. Like more than like where you got the calories from. Okay. Because there's like a linkage between everything. It's really easy to eat a lot of bad foods to get into a surplus. If you eat lean green and clean, it's really hard to get to a super bad surplus unless you're just like packing your stomach. Right. Right. I guess, David, why can't there be in the future? Isn't there some type of body scan that can scan your body and your genetics and then you just take a quick quiz and then it basically just don't they do that again? They just tell you what to eat because everybody's different. Right. Even a micro gut biome and things like that. Like, oh, everybody's body has different allergies and things like that. Yeah, foods may give you diarrhea. It doesn't give me diarrhea. So our diets got to be different. Yeah. Some people are allergic to nutritious foods. Yeah. But it seems like, isn't it funny that the comment section just turned into like almost like identarian, like more than just like, no, I don't like, I mean, do you find this? Some people found this article offensive. I don't find it offensive as much as it's just incomplete and it's simplified. Yeah, it seemed like it was from 19, like, yeah, it's almost like, where'd you pull this out of the archives of like the 1980s? Like, oh, Mediterranean diet. Have you heard of it? Ah, so new. Greek salad with some nuts on it. Right. Yeah. I don't even like Greek salads. Yeah. I can't eat the Greek salad. It's not going to work for me because I don't like how they taste. Greek food is great, but the Greek salad, whack. Oh, man, I got it. I'd rather like arugula. Somebody said, yep, it's because everything in America is not natural. This nation wants us to have high blood pressure so they can put us on big pharma, blood pressure pills. They wouldn't do that in Europe. Other people are blaming it on conspiracy theories from big pharma in collusion with the refined carb companies, Andrew. What do you think? So basically, they're saying they just don't have that industrial complex set up in Europe, but they have it in America. Yeah, I guess. I mean, it's possible. They do things differently over there. I just think, man, after watching all these health videos, I was like, man, everything you're bought bottled water has gotten nanoplastics in it. Don't drink bottled water. Don't eat this. Don't eat that. Don't eat eggs with hormones, only cage free. I don't know, man. Of course, Andrew, then it turned into man, you know, not everybody, of course, just healthy eating is basically healthy eating. And people just think that promoting Mediterranean is the only way to get Westernized people to adopt a relatively healthy diet because obviously Western people, they're not going to eat Asian food, even though like they're not going to eat like Okinawan dishes. Okinawan actually has a lot of Chinese. No, I get that the meta saying just eat the Mediterranean diet is an easy way. If someone has to just be like, I don't know what diet to adopt. Okay, Mediterranean, they said it, you know, I guess it's not like wrong. Right. And then people are talking about, oh, food deserts, this type of food isn't accessible to everybody. I don't know. Yes and no. I think that the commercialization of food in America could make it more or less difficult, but now there's food delivery and stuff like that. I don't really buy that in the richest country in the world. You can't eat healthy. It's like people don't have those patterns of behavior to eat healthy. Oh, dude, America is like the best place. Well, I don't know. I mean, depending on where you live in America, things are more available. But still, you can pretty much eat what you want. You can get hummus anywhere if you want. Yeah, and what are your takeaways, man? How come this discussion turned into like, ding, is that just everything nowadays? It's great. In the comments section, there's not a lot of talking about seco calories in calories out. There wasn't a lot of talking about, I mean, some people were, but most of the discussion was about a bunch of other stuff. At the end of the day, man, it just depends on what you want to do with your life, because in America if you want to eat healthy, I don't care where you live, you can do it. If you try, it may not be, it may not be, you may have to go there, you got to order food from this and that, but like probably in 95% of America, you can pretty much just eat whatever, however you want if you try. And so it's just about, about what your goals are, right? Do you want to look like a bodybuilder? Do you want to be super shredded? That's going to be a little bit different than if you just want to walk around and have like good cardiovascular. Well, you, to have good cardiovascular, you got to do some cardio actually. So even if you just eat a bunch of olive oil and feta cheese all the time, but you just sit there gaming, you're still going to gain weight. Right. Well, because you're not getting any calories out. Yeah. So yeah, the calories might be coming from a good place, but it's like, it's still not going to, still going to suffer. Yeah. I mean, it's just so stupid. I don't get this conversation, man. I'm shocked that in America, with the best like universities, the most money, everybody is still just so caught up in maintaining their lifestyle and justifying their lifestyle and then demonizing somebody else's lifestyle that that's, but then everybody's fat. But do people argue about exercise the same way? I see some people argue about like lifting weights versus like slow burn stuff. Yeah. Versus cardio versus lifting weights. Okay. There's that trend right now. Just set your incline on seven and walk for 20 minutes on speed six. Sure. Yeah. Why not? Probably not bad for you. Get your need in. I mean, it might speed up your need a little bit. But at the end of the day, man, I just think that that's where we're at right now. We're almost like over complicating everything and like articles about this turning the article comments about that. And that's just where we're at right now. Let us know what you guys think it is in the comments section below. I think it's this man. People want to live how they want and not be accountable for their outcomes. I think that's fair. I think that's what people want. So I guess people just don't want to feel ashamed of whatever they're doing. Even if what they're doing has no like real logical like good consequences. Anyway guys, let us know what you think in the comments section below. Until next time, we're the hop hop boys. We out. Peace.