Home » Featured » Greek Food Gazette 30/04/2010
Approaching the city of Kastoria, western Macedonia

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© 2007-2010 Peter Minakis

5 Responses

  1. The article “Eat Greek, eat to your good health” is part of an ongoing mythology perpetuated by nutritionists and food writers enamored of the “traditional” Greek diet of several generations ago. But The “typical” modern Greek diet is far from the picture painted in the article, although in fairness, as a model or paradigm, it really has a lot going for it. It may even still exist in parts of Greece, perhaps in rural areas that have escaped the gift/blight of tourism. But in reality, the current Greek diet (especially in urban areas) is the antithesis of good health. In fact, WHO statistics now show Greece to have the highest obesity rate in Europe and the 6th highest in the world (the USA is #1 and Canada is #12). Greeks are also the world’s #1 smokers, riding a typically Greek wave of contrariness from the rest of the world. The high rates of smoking contaminate the health statistics, making it very difficult to tease apart the effects of diet from those of smoking.

    As little as five years ago, when I visited my family in Greece, we typically sat for the evening meal at the dining room table. Today, exhausted by the demands of modernity, we “typically” sit in front of the TV to eat…often chicken ordered in.

    So while there’s nothing wrong with promoting this fantasy diet as an ideal we can all strive for, it is frankly only a fantasy. That is in my humble opinion. And strangely enough, I find that those of us in the diaspora, eat and live far more “traditionally” than the Greeks…stuck as we are in the pre-modern example of our parents. A few years ago I went to Greece for a traditional Easter celebration in Tsepelovo, a small mountain village near the border with Albania. As the Easter mass was being said, I was astonished to see the restaurants jam-packed with Greeks scarfing down meat and booze. If I had done that here, my mother would have killed me!

    1. Steve, I disagree with your blanket statement that we in the Diaspora eat better than in Greece. The main reason we here are at a disadvantage is that our main meal of the day is dinner or after work (whenever that may be). Many families in Greece still consider and eat lunch as the main meal of the day, a considerable advantage when it comes to diet.

      The other advantage of the folks in Greece is that many still eat seasonal produce and again, the obvious benefits to eating according to the seasons far outweighs our diet of largely imported produce (say Canada).

      Greece is experiencing what we’ve been experiencing: economic pressures that lead to two parents working, later hours, less time to cook and more convenience foods available. The Greek diet is to be strived for, we must take the time to cook, to gather the family around the table as much as possible, cut down on meat, increase fruit/vegetables, eat fish & seafood moderately and eat seasonal (as local as possible).

  2. Peter:

    I agree with you completely…it’s a great model to strive for. My point was simply that the Greeks themselves are experiencing pressure to move away from their own dietary heritage…as are the French, Chinese, etc., in the wake of globalization.

    Of course it’s much easier to eat seasonally when you only have two seasons! We also have two seasons in Canada….Winter…and Construction season :-)

    With respect to the evening meal, I suspect that that too will show substantial urban vs. rural patterns. I’ve noticed that within my family and friends in Thessaloniki and Athens that there is a shift to the larger evening meal, especially as the afternoon siesta succumbs to pressures for “Westernization”.

    And again from a “quality” perspective, while the Greeks do consume large amounts of olive oil, they also consume vast quantities of synthetic trans-fat laden “Fitini”, which is the primary product for baking (as Crisco used to be in America before our “enlightenment”)

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