What Is The ‘Atlantic Diet’? Why It’s Not As Healthy As It Seems
A new study has found that eating like people living along the Atlantic coast in Spain and Portugal can lower the risk of developing conditions that can lead to diabetes and heart disease. It was also found that adopting the diet can slightly lower your carbon footprint.
The study has been widely covered in the media, with the Atlantic diet being hailed as the new way to eat healthily. Though it isn’t actually a new diet, being a standard way of eating for some Atlantic coastal communities. It’s a variation on the more familiar and well-studied Mediterranean diet, which emphasizes plant-based whole foods and limited animal products.
So what exactly is the Atlantic diet? And is it as good for health and the environment as the media reports?
What is the Atlantic diet?
Like the Mediterranean diet, the Atlantic diet includes legumes, fresh vegetables, wholegrains, and olive oil, as well as wine drunk with meals. But it also includes more red meat such as beef and pork, and is high in fish, particularly cod.
While olive oil is the main source of fat in the Mediterranean diet, the Atlantic diet also includes more dairy products. Bread, pasta, rice, cereals, and/or
For a healthy fruit snack, what would you choose?
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Next time you’re packing lunch for your kid or reaching for a healthy afternoon bite, consider this: only three types of fruit snacks—dried fruit, fruit puree and canned fruit with juice—meet the latest recommendations for high-nutrition snacks set by federal dietary guidelines, according to research by University of Massachusetts Amherst food scientists.
Of all the commercially available fruit snacks, defined by the USDA as “products made with fruit and fruit juices, which may or may not contain added sugar, artificial colors and flavors, and preservatives,” the UMass Amherst team found that dried fruit has the best overall nutritional profile—the highest nutrient density and fiber content, and the lowest added sugar.
Conversely, fruit-flavored snacks such as gummies have the lowest nutrient density and fiber content and the highest amount of added sugar. Other fruit snack options with low nutrient density include canned fruit packed in something other than juice, and dried flavored fruit, both of which contain higher amounts of added sugar.
The food comparison study, led by food scientists Amanda Kinchla, extension professor, and Alissa Nolden, assistant professor, was published recently in the journal Nutrients.
While eating a piece of fresh fruit is undoubtedly the