The Mediterranean diet has been determined to be the best diet in the world by weight loss analysts at the US News and World Reports for several years now.

This diet involves eating a lot of greens and less processed foods. However, some dairy and animal products still can be consumed. For a vegetarian, it is important to adapt this healthy diet to suit your tastes.

This article will discuss the basic things to know about following the Mediterranean diet, and how to adapt it to a vegan lifestyle.

What Is the Mediterranean Diet?

The Mediterranean diet is not a diet per se, because it does not involve restrictive eating habits. Rather, it is a lifestyle based on the traditional meals consumed by the people who reside near the Mediterranean Sea.

Because of cultural differences, the cuisines of the people of Italy, Greece, France, and Spain are not totally similar. However, they all follow the same fundamental principles of cooking from scratch, avoiding highly processed foods, and eating a lot of healthy foods.

Cooking food in batches and meal prepping are part of the things to do while preparing Mediterranean meals. They also eat leftovers so that the food doesn’t go to waste.  If you can’t always make your meals from scratch by yourself, you can subscribe to a Mediterranean diet meal delivery service that will take on the responsibilities of preparing these meals and having them delivered to your doorstep.

What Are The Benefits Of The Mediterranean Diet?

Since it is more of a lifestyle than a diet, the Mediterranean way of eating offers greater sustainability and balance compared to most diets. Some of the benefits of this diet include:

• It is not a restrictive diet, and it encourages people to eat natural food instead of highly processed ones.
• It reduces the risk of developing health conditions such as heart disease, stroke, loss of cognition, and type II diabetes.
• It is a good diet for someone who wants to lose weight in a healthy way.
• It encourages people to eat food that has anti-inflammatory properties, such as green vegetables.
• The foods included in this diet are a source of healthy cholesterol.

Foods To Include In The Mediterranean Diet

Mostly, people who follow this diet eat vegetables, whole grains, fruits, and healthy fats. Moderately, they consume fatty fish like salmon and dairy products. Instead of salt, the Mediterranean diet would involve seasoning food with dried herbs and spices.

As a vegetarian, going grocery shopping for staples and food ingredients to get started with this new way of life, here are some things to buy.

• Vegetables such as avocado, beets, bell peppers, leafy greens, and zucchini. Also, you can buy carrots, celery, eggplant, cauliflower, kale, and any other vegetable that catches your fancy.
• Legumes such as kidney beans, lentils, fava beans, chickpeas, and cannellini beans.
• Grains including buckwheat, barley, quinoa, oats, and brown rice are staples for people who eat this diet. You can also include rye, corn, farro, bulgur, and couscous in your diet.
• Nuts like almonds, walnuts, pine nuts, macadamia nuts, cashew, and hazelnuts are regular in this diet plan.
• Fruits including cherries, dates, figs, apples, and apricots can be eaten in the Mediterranean diet. Pears, tangerines, oranges, melons, raspberries, and bananas are also good examples.
• Herbs and Spices such as allspice, thyme, turmeric, cloves, and cumin. Garlic, nutmeg, mint, parsley, oregano, sage, basil, and onion powder are some of the spices that you can include in this diet.
• Sources of Fats can be Olive oil, olives, or avocado oil.
• You can use Balsamic vinegar, apple cider vinegar, or red wine vinegar to cook.
• Tahini is also an ingredient that people who eat the Mediterranean diet love to add to their food.

Why Should A Vegan Consider The Mediterranean Diet?

You might be wondering why this diet is recommended for you, considering your existing plant-based diet. Some of the reasons why you should consider adopting the Mediterranean diet are:

• It is really vegetarian-friendly as most of the meals are made from plant-based products
• It is easy to prep meals
• Eating so healthily helps to prevent and manage a variety of health conditions, such as type II diabetes and stroke.
• It encourages people to eat anti-inflammatory foods.

How Do I Make My Mediterranean Diet More Vegan-Friendly?

One major concern with a plant-based diet is obtaining complete sources of protein. Most plants don’t have all the proteins needed for the complete nutrition that animal food sources provide. As a vegetarian, you need to be conscious of what you eat so that you will not lack the essential nutrients that your body requires.

One way you can do this is to make meals that combine plants that lack one type of protein with a plant that has that specific protein. For example, wheat-based products are poor in lysine, so you can eat those with lysine-rich food such as soybeans in order to get your required nutrients.

You can also eat complete sources of protein, such as quinoa, soy and soy products (tofu and tempeh), chia seeds, and spirulina.

Since the Mediterranean diet also involves the moderate consumption of dairy-based products, you’re going to need to shop for plant-based milk and cheeses. The occasional sip of red wine is also a part of this way of eating and you can get vegan red wine, just look out for the green V on the bottle.

Essential nutrients like vitamins D, K, and B12 might be missing from the Mediterranean diet. There are various fortified cereals and supplements that you can buy to get these nutrients as required.

Sample 3-Day Mediterranean Meal Plan

Here is a sample meal plan for the Mediterranean diet:

Day 1

• For breakfast, a cup of Greek yogurt with granola and some strawberries.
• During Lunch, you can have some Falafel with a hummus veggie wrap.
• You can prepare homemade Thai basil-fried cauliflower rice for dinner.

Day 2

• You can make some Whole grain-based sandwiches with any vegetables of your choice for breakfast.
• You can eat Oat milk green curry with tofu and some veggies for lunch.
• You can make some Tofu with broccoli stir fry to have for dinner.

Day 3

• Your breakfast can be Oatmeal or Overnight oats with strawberries and blueberries. You can also add some bananas to the mix.
• You can prepare black beans with quinoa Buddha bowls for lunch.
• And at the end of the day, you can have vegan sushi bowls.

Conclusion

The Mediterranean diet is more of a lifestyle to be lived than it is a diet. It involves eating healthier food and avoiding processed foods and sugars. When people live this way, some benefits they get include an improvement in their heart and gut health.

This diet can be a very good choice for you as a vegetarian as it is already mostly plant-based. However, since some animal products are also eaten in it, you can make it more vegan-friendly by buying plant-based milk, and other alternatives.

Thank you for reading.

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