Keep it simple, stupid

I bought some porridge oats the other day. The supermarket ones were missing from the shelf so I shelled out double the price for some branded ones, Oatabix. There was a label on the side of the packet. It was a bit like the label you get on electrical goods to show how energy efficient they are. The one on food is called Nutri-Score. I'd never seen it before but it's simple enough. Green is good, orangey yellows are okey dokey and red is a certain ticket to purgatory.

Apparently the French invented the label using some UK Food Standards Agency scoring system. It uses seven indicators: energy (lots of calories) -bad, sugar -bad, saturated fats -bad, sodium -bad, fibre - good, protein - good. So far, so good. It's not that hard to see the sense. Obviously it's an oversimplification but that's the idea; to make it simple and fast. I think it's a good idea.

Now, imagine you're Spanish and you think that the Mediterranean diet is the bee's knees even though you actually eat McDonald's and Domino's pizza when the opportunity arises. The shorthand idea of the Mediterranean Diet is about lots of salads and fruit, a good deal of wine, some nuts, plenty of fish and litres and litres of olive oil. In fact, apparently it's much more complicated, it's a whole lifestyle. I wrote a blog about it a while ago should you care to look.

So the Spanish Government has recommended the NutriScore labelling system (EU laws don't allow countries to unilaterally impose their own food labelling system so it can only be a recommendation). The trouble is that it gives extra virgin olive oil a sort of midway label and that other star of Spanish cuisine, jamón ibérico (a cured ham), a similarly coloured label. Yesterday on the TV news journalists were out in the street with a can of diet Coke in one hand and a plate of 5Js Iberico ham in the other asking people which they thought was healthier. They did the same with tomato ketchup and olive oil. You can imagine the indignation.

A little more sex please, we're Spanish.

This morning Spanish radio was quoting from an article in the Times. The original impetus for the Times story came from a scientific paper in the Lancet which predicted that Spaniards, by 2040, will be the longest lived nation in the World, overtaking the Japanese. It's not much of a predicted difference - 85.8 years for the Spanish and 85.7 for the Japanese. If RNE 1 can pinch an idea from the Times. which pinched it from the Lancet, I don't see why I shouldn't join in by appropriating information from the freebie newspaper 20 minutos. The prediction for the UK is 83.3 years by the way.

The 20 minutos title was "They drink, they smoke; why do Spaniards live so long?" In the piece it says that more Spaniards than Brits smoke, 23% versus 16%, the alcohol intake is more or less the same and both nations sleep, on average, the same number of hours.

The Times suggested a few key differences. Apparently Spaniards walk more, not in a strenuous way but in the idea of using their feet to get somewhere. To the shops, to school or just the leg stretching evening stroll to greet friends and make sure that nothing has happened to the neighbourhood without them being aware.

The journalist also noted that despite longer working hours in Spain the Spaniards still tend to get in a midday nap if they can. I've never found any working Spaniards who get the siesta, except maybe in the summer holidays, but if the Times says it's true maybe it is.

Then, of course, there's the famous Mediterranean diet with lots of fruit, veg, olive oil and red wine. Well, again, if that's what the journalists say I suppose it must be true but, to be honest, I don't see much of that diet in restaurants or in the answers I get from my language students. On the other hand the British newspaper reports that Spaniards don't eat the ultra-processed foods that we Britons do and that I go along with 100%. Anytime I go to an "English" supermarket here in Spain I'm overcome by the number of things you can buy in packets. Compare the goods at the checkout in any "normal" Spanish supermarket and you will see the raw materials of food making rather than the finished product.

The last of the lifestyle differences was that Spaniards have more sex than Britons - 2.1 times a week instead of 1.7 times.

And one last thing, not really a lifestyle difference but flagged as relevant. Some researchers in Vermont did a study of the ten most spoken languages in the world looking for lexical differences. Apparently it's Spanish that has the highest number of happy, positive words but, as the research was done in the USA, it's likely that their language sample was as Mexican, Guatemalan, Peruvian and so on rather than just Spaniards.

Wispy light and more

The first time I ever caught the sense of a conversation going on around me in Spanish was on a bus in Granada. I'd always thought that Spanish conversations were probably about Goethe or something equally profound but that one was, in fact, about whether peas should or should not be an ingredient of some stew. Food is a topic of conversation close to the hearts of many Spaniards.

One of the things that crops up in those food conversations is the Mediterranean diet. If you were to ask me what the Mediterranean diet I'd have to say that I'm not quite sure. I know that it includes more fish than meat, cereals, pulses, nuts, vegetables, fruit, wine and lots of olive oil but I'm a bit hazy on the details. We live pretty close to the Mediterranean. In fact yesterday we were in Santa Pola and if we'd chosen to we could have gone for a paddle, so I should know what the diet is but I don't. One of the confusing things about it is that lots of what seem to be traditional Spanish foods look remarkably unhealthy. Surely things like chorizo, the white bread sticks, the deep fried pescaitos, the peanuts dripping in oil, the cheese, the croquetas and all the rest can't really be part of a healthy diet?

Back in Santa Pola I asked if they had any sangre, blood, to go along with the beer. I'm not sure what sangre contains exactly apart from blood and onions but it looks like liver and it tastes yummy (though Maggie disagrees). It's not so available away from the coast which is why I was taking my opportunity. There wasn't any so I asked for Russian salad instead. Ensaladilla rusa is a staple in lots of Alicante and beyond - a sort of potato, egg, tuna, carrot and pea salad held together with mayonnaise. Tasty certainly but healthy?

Actually, I know exactly what I think of when the Mediterranean diet is mentioned and it has nothing to do with the food. The Mediterranean diet is a bronzed Anthony Quinn peeling and eating fruit directly from his pocket knife, it's him eating, and laughing with his friends as he drinks copious quantities of wine around a sun dappled outdoor table against the azure blue background of the sparkling sea.

I read an article in el País yesterday which seemed to reach a similar conclusion only they made no mention of Quinn nor Jean Reno in the Big Blue who would be my other point of reference.

El País told me that back in 1953 an epidemiologist called Leland G. Allbaugh published a paper about the, then, normal diet on Crete. Cretans ate a very basic diet yet they were healthier than Americans. A medical doctor, Dr. Ancel Keys, saw the research and spent years trying to work out why. He did research in seven countries and, to oversimplify, came up with the  conclusion that saturated fat in diets was a major conditioner of heart disease along with cholesterol and high blood pressure. Whilst he was involved in the early years of the survey Keys and his wife published a book called Eat Well and Stay Well. Later, in 1975, they published a second book called How to Eat Well and Stay Well: The Mediterranean Way. It was, apparently, that book which led to the term Mediterranean diet coming into everyday use. But the “Mediterranean Way” was more than particular foods and cuisines or eating patterns. It involved aspects of lifestyle and the economy, such as walking to and from work in physically active occupations like farming, crafts, fishing and herding, taking the major meal at midday, having an afternoon break from work. In short the food was only a part of the traditional Mediterranean  lifestyle.

In 2011, the European Food Safety Authority published a position document arguing that it could not establish whether the Mediterranean diet was healthy or not because it was unable to find a clear definition of what the diet was. The Authority also noted that the inclusion of quite a lot of wine in all of the versions made it technically unhealthy. The Mediterranean diet though does feature as an intangible cultural heritage on UNESCO's list - just like Flamenco or the Fallas celebrations. The definition is not about the food it's about agriculture and tradition, about sharing food and about cultural identity. The full definition is at the bottom of the page

The newspaper article writer argued that the Mediterranean diet was actually more of a process of four decades of hype than an actual dietary regime. Like I said, Anthony Quinn, the suntan, the cicadas singing, the shared bottle of wine. The laughter. Now that was all around us as we ate the ensaladilla rusa in Santa Pola yesterday.

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UNESCO definition: The Mediterranean diet involves a set of skills, knowledge, rituals, symbols and traditions concerning crops, harvesting, fishing, animal husbandry, conservation, processing, cooking, and particularly the sharing and consumption of food. Eating together is the foundation of the cultural identity and continuity of communities throughout the Mediterranean basin. It is a moment of social exchange and communication, an affirmation and renewal of family, group or community identity. The Mediterranean diet emphasizes values of hospitality, neighbourliness, intercultural dialogue and creativity, and a way of life guided by respect for diversity. It plays a vital role in cultural spaces, festivals and celebrations, bringing together people of all ages, conditions and social classes. It includes the craftsmanship and production of traditional receptacles for the transport, preservation and consumption of food, including ceramic plates and glasses. Women play an important role in transmitting knowledge of the Mediterranean diet: they safeguard its techniques, respect seasonal rhythms and festive events, and transmit the values of the element to new generations. Markets also play a key role as spaces for cultivating and transmitting the Mediterranean diet during the daily practice of exchange, agreement and mutual respect.