Episode 27

The Green Mediterranean Diet

Published on: 13th December, 2022

The Green Mediterranean Diet

Imagine being able to improve the Mediterranean Diet with a few changes. Is the new "Green" Mediterranean Diet the ultimate hack? The Green Mediterranean Diet  (Green-Med) has become the hottest version of the MED diet yet.

Advantages of the Green Mediterranean Diet

There are three advantages to Green-Med

  1. Less Fatty Liver
  2. Decreased risk of heart disease
  3. Less Visceral Fat

Fatty Liver

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is the number one cause of liver failure in the United States. It surpassed alcoholic liver disease as the number one reason for liver transplants. But how do you get fatty liver?

Is fatty liver caused by sugar or fat or both?

Low-Carb enthusiasts blame fructose, or almost any sugar, as the cause of fatty liver disease. Although the latest boogyman is "seed oils." On the other hand, vegans will blame saturated fats.

But sugars in mice are not the same as sugars in men.

Fatty liver appears to be a byproduct of obesity, excess calories, and genetics.

Reducing fatty liver

After weight loss surgery, people rapidly lose weight, including in their liver.

But people on the Green Mediterranean Diet lost more weight in their liver than those with the standard Mediterranean diet.

Visceral Fat

Belly fat is one of the hardest fats to get rid of. As people age, belly fat increases. So when women go through menopause, they increase belly fat.  And lowering belly fat is best done through weight loss with a high-fiber diet and cardiovascular exercise. But Green-Med appears to lower it even more.

Cardiovascular Risk Factors

Although MED is known for reducing the risk of heart disease, Green-Med seems superior.

Implementing the green Mediterranean Diet

The difference between the green and standard Mediterranean diet

  • 28 grams of walnuts a day - about one ounce
  • 3-4 cups of green tea per day
  • 100 grams per day of frozen Mankai
  • Reduction in red meat

Green Tea is Easy

There are more polyphenols in it than in black tea - so it's easier to drink.

Adding walnuts is easy; they are also a great source of omega-3 fatty acids.

Decreasing red meat isn't difficult.

Finding Mankai or duckweed - well, you can't in the United States

No one has reproduced the data about the Green Mediterranean Diet - perhaps because they can't find those frozen cubes of duckweed.

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About the Podcast

Fork U with Dr. Terry Simpson
Learn more about what you put in your mouth.
Fork U(niversity)
Not everything you put in your mouth is good for you.

There’s a lot of medical information thrown around out there. How are you to know what information you can trust, and what’s just plain old quackery? You can’t rely on your own “google fu”. You can’t count on quality medical advice from Facebook. You need a doctor in your corner.

On each episode of Your Doctor’s Orders, Dr. Terry Simpson will cut through the clutter and noise that always seems to follow the latest medical news. He has the unique perspective of a surgeon who has spent years doing molecular virology research and as a skeptic with academic credentials. He’ll help you develop the critical thinking skills so you can recognize evidence-based medicine, busting myths along the way.

The most common medical myths are often disguised as seemingly harmless “food as medicine”. By offering their own brand of medicine via foods, These hucksters are trying to practice medicine without a license. And though they’ll claim “nutrition is not taught in medical schools”, it turns out that’s a myth too. In fact, there’s an entire medical subspecialty called Culinary Medicine, and Dr. Simpson is certified as a Culinary Medicine Specialist.

Where today's nutritional advice is the realm of hucksters, Dr. Simpson is taking it back to the realm of science.

About your host

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Terry Simpson

Dr. Terry Simpson received his undergraduate, graduate, and medical degrees from the University of Chicago where he spent several years in the Kovler Viral Oncology laboratories doing genetic engineering. Until he found he liked people more than petri dishes. Dr. Simpson, a weight loss surgeon is an advocate of culinary medicine, he believes teaching people to improve their health through their food and in their kitchen. On the other side of the world, he has been a leading advocate of changing health care to make it more "relationship based," and his efforts awarded his team the Malcolm Baldrige award for healthcare in 2018 and 2011 for the NUKA system of care in Alaska and in 2013 Dr Simpson won the National Indian Health Board Area Impact Award. A frequent contributor to media outlets discussing health related topics and advances in medicine, he is also a proud dad, husband, author, cook, and surgeon “in that order.”