Amanda Wilde (Host): The Mediterranean diet highlights plant-based foods and healthy fats and has a very positive effect on your health. So, we're taking a close look at the Mediterranean diet with Executive Chef of the Harvest Grill at Cumberland Healthcare, Jeno Herman.

 This is Healthier You, a Cumberland HealthCare podcast. I'm Amanda Wilde. Hello, Chef Jeno. Welcome. Good to have you here.

Jeno Herman: Good to be here.

Host: So, the Harvest Grill is part of what you do, but you feed both your patients and the public. Can you explain that?

Jeno Herman: Yeah. We have a restaurant within the hospital, and we are open 7:00 to 7:00 Monday through Friday. We take care of all of our staff, all of our patients, and we also are open to the public for those people who want to come in and have breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

Host: That is quite a range. And do you adhere to the Mediterranean diet?

Jeno Herman: A lot of what we do goes along with that as we stick to scratch kitchen and very little processed food. We bake our own breads. We make our own pizza dough. We do everything we can from scratch.

Host: Well, let's get into the Mediterranean diet. What is it exactly?

Jeno Herman: It's a diet with an emphasis on plant-based foods and healthy fats. It focuses on overall eating patterns instead of just like a strict diet formula. It focuses on fresh, non-processed foods that are available. And basically, it's the lack of processing of the food.

Host: And what health benefits do people get from the Mediterranean diet? Why do it?

Jeno Herman: It can have a real positive effect on your health. It lowers your risks of cardiovascular disease. It supports a healthy body weight. Very good for your blood pressure and cholesterol. It can lower your risk of type 2 diabetes because it's very low in sugar. it helps with your gut health and lowers risks of certain cancers like colon cancer. It's great for your vision health as well.

Host: Then, how does the Mediterranean diet do all this?

Jeno Herman: The diet limits saturated and trans fats, and replaces them with healthy unsaturated fats like omega-3s, extra virgin olive oil. A simple way our dietician likes to explain healthy versus unhealthy fats to our patients is that saturated are generally solid at room temperature. So, you're talking about things like butter, shortening, animal fats, like bacon or the fat on a steak, while the polyunsaturated fats in omega-3s are liquid at room temperature, like nut oils are included there too, extra virgin olive oil, the fats that you find in good fish like salmon, the good fats that the doctors are always telling you to make sure you're having.

Host: The Mediterranean diet I have found has been pretty universally suggested by healthcare professionals, but does it require following a strict regimen, or is it somewhat fluid?

Jeno Herman: It's very fluid. For somebody who wants to just push towards the Mediterranean diet versus dive right in, you could do things like eat more fish, less red meat. But you do have to keep some red meat in your diet because of iron. You can cut back on sweets. And to me, I think the most important thing is more fresh food, less processed food, and that's what we try to adhere by here at Harvest Grill, and also eating more fruits and vegetables.

Host: So when I think of Mediterranean diet, I think of the cuisines of Mediterranean countries like Italy and Greece. Are they included in the Mediterranean diet that we're talking about?

Jeno Herman: Oh, absolutely. Yes, I am personally more partial to Italian cuisine. I love the flavors and the focus on freshness of ingredients, the seasonality. A really good chef that I worked for one time told me the food is 80% about the ingredients and 20% what you do with them, and I think he couldn't be more right. Using fresh, ripe, local, seasonal, that's all things we try to do here at the Harvest Grill as well.

Host: So, that really makes a health difference, fresh, ripe, and local and seasonal.

Jeno Herman: Absolutely. Absolutely. It makes a difference with the flavors too, so that's definitely something to keep in mind.

Host: Can you give some examples of some Mediterranean dishes?

Jeno Herman: Yeah. Some examples outside of the Italian and Greek stuff that pops to mind when you think of Mediterranean cuisine, it would be like Spain, Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon. And I'll give you a few examples, like a couple dishes from Spain that probably is something people have heard of. Paella, that's saffron-flavored rice with seafood, meat, and vegetable.

Host: Isn't that the Spanish jambalaya?

Jeno Herman: Kind of, yeah. It's very much of a Spanish jambalaya. Also, gazpacho would be a good one from Spain, chilled tomato, cucumber bread soup. I personally like that one a lot. And then, when you're talking about like Moroccan cuisine, I think of couscous and tagine. Couscous is a steamed rolled semolina. I think most people would be familiar with that at some point. There is also Israeli couscous, which is more of a pasta. The thought that you can't have flour is not even a thought I should say in the Mediterranean diet. There is plenty of pastas, obviously, and flours involved.

Host: What about sugars? That's another big one that we Americans like.

Jeno Herman: Yeah, there's not a lot of sweets, which for me is very easy. For some people, it's tough to get away from, but there's not the sugary drinks, all the processed sweet snacks that us Americans tend to lean towards.

And then, on to Egypt, there's things like baba ghanoush and falafels. I really like baba ghanoush. It's a roasted eggplant with extra virgin olive oil, lemon, and tahini. Tahini is a sesame paste, if anybody's not familiar with it. You find it also in hummus, the tahini, with the chickpeas and oil and garlic, which you'd find this more Lebanese. But I think everybody's probably familiar with hummus, which is a very healthy snack to have.

Host: And I just want to tell people, if you're not much of a cook, some of these, I can say from experience, are really easy to make if you have a food processor. Baba ghanoush, hummus, gazpacho are all very easy to actually whip up in one dish and it's not as complicated as it might sound.

Jeno Herman: Absolutely.

Host: Would you mind sharing a recipe with us?

Jeno Herman: What kind of recipe would want to hear about?

Host: Maybe a recipe for those of us who are dipping our toe into the Mediterranean diet, or as I said, maybe those of us who aren't chefs. And so, some of these, when you talk about cuisines from other countries, that can sound daunting.

Jeno Herman: Yeah. I think a good starting point if you want to have a healthy snack, hummus would be a good one to go with because it's very simple. Like you said, if you have a food processor, it's really easy. You buy chickpeas, also called garbanzo beans, strain them off, get them in the food processor. I like to add like roasted garlic. You can add a lot of different things to hummus, but the mainstays are the chickpeas, oil, garlic, and tahini. And from there, you can really do anything. I like to put some herbs in there. So, say we puree the chickpeas, we add in plenty of extra virgin olive oil to get that right consistency so your food processor is going to work, and a hefty spoonful of tahini, a little bit of garlic. I just did some last week that had fresh herbs from our herb garden outside. And it's very, very easy just to chop up some rosemary and thyme. You can sprinkle it on top. You could put it right in the food processor, however you like.

Host: So, you do need to also be able to adjust your cuisine to what is local and what is fresh.

Jeno Herman: Yes. Yep. Right now, at the Harvest Grill, we're actually featuring a lot of heirloom tomatoes because I've got a local guy who goes to the market and he sells everything he can at the market, and then stops by Harvest Grill and we buy the rest. So, I think we bought 30 pounds of heirloom tomatoes last week, and I'm hoping we have that much this week because our whole menu can really revolve around it. There's so many things you can do with good local tomatoes.

Host: I think the best thing for people to do who live anywhere near Cumberland Healthcare is to sample your restaurant, and then figure out what you like and start with those foods, if you are starting the Mediterranean diet.

Jeno Herman: Absolutely.

Host: For those who have more experience with this diet, do you have any suggestions for them? For example, one doctor told me you do have to follow it pretty closely. You said it's very flexible and that person was saying, "Yeah, yeah, you have to drink the two glasses of red wine a day." Do you concur with that or no?

Jeno Herman: I don't think that's necessary. I think any move in this direction with your diet to get away from the processed foods, all the red meat, and start cutting out some sugar. They use very little butter and dairy. And some do drink the red wine with meals. Heavy on the fish is really good, especially ones that are high in omega-3s like salmon, tuna, anchovies, mackerel. In the culinary world, we call them more oily fish, but that's really referring to that omega-3 fatty acids.

Host: So, it sounds like if you hit the highlights of the Mediterranean diet, you're emphasizing fish and healthy fats and freshness in your fruits and vegetables. Right there, you reduce your risk of a range of diseases as well.

Jeno Herman: Right, exactly. And another thing to add in there is the lack of processed food, you know, to know where your food comes from, and not have to read the giant ingredient label on the back of your macaroni and cheese when you can make a real simple pasta with some fresh tomatoes and garlic.

Host: Yeah, like what are all these extra things doing in there?

Jeno Herman: Right.

Host: I can give a helpful hint too. You know, when I am very tempted to get something at the store that I know probably isn't, let's say, on the Mediterranean diet and probably isn't that good for me, and I'm really tempted to get this as a treat, I will read the ingredients. And oftentimes that is a complete turn off, and it's much easier to put that package back on the shelf.

Jeno Herman: Yeah. I wholeheartedly agree.

Host: And do you follow the Mediterranean diet yourself?

Jeno Herman: I do, and I don't. I do try to keep my food unprocessed. I do love my steaks and my bacon, but I have to try to limit that.

Host: But that is really good to hear, Jeno, because in the beginning you mentioned bacon, and I thought, "Oh, no, not bacon," because, you know, we're American, we all love bacon.

Jeno Herman: You can't take away my bacon. I don't think I can live. I just have to eat lots of it.

Host: Just to put it out there. Just balance is important.

Jeno Herman: Right. Just like anything.

Host: Jeno, thank you so much for all this important information. I think you've made it a little easier for those of us who are less familiar to really look into the Mediterranean diet. And I love hearing about the many health benefits. Thank you so much.

Jeno Herman: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Host: And for more information, please visit cumberlandhealthcare.com/patients-visitors/harvest-grill. If you found this podcast helpful, please share it and be sure to check out our full library for more episodes. This is Healthier You, the podcast from Cumberland Healthcare.