Saturday, August 16, 2025 |
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It's long been held up as the world's healthiest way to eat – but the Mediterranean diet is quietly slipping out of fashion in the very countries that created it. In Spain, Italy and Greece, ultra-processed food consumption is rising, child obesity is soaring, and climate change is degrading the soils that once yielded nutrient-rich produce. I speak to Spanish nutritional psychiatrist Dr Rubén Fernández-Rodríguez about how convenience, cost and even toxic masculinity are eroding the region's traditional eating habits – and why, paradoxically, the very ultra-processed foods blamed for its downfall might also be what saves it.
Meanwhile in the UK, we've developed an insatiable appetite for all things American – at least on our plates. From mafia-inspired Mayfair hotspots to high-street fried chicken chains, Americana is the dominant flavour right now. We might roll our eyes at their politics, but when it comes to burgers, rigatoni and peanut butter milkshakes, it's open arms and empty stomachs. As Carbone prepares to land in Grosvenor Square, we explore why the UK's current food muse is the land of the free – and whether we're craving more than just the martinis.
Elsewhere, Kyle MacNeill meets Freelee the BananaGirl – an Australian health influencer who made her name eating 50 bananas a day and is now loudly championing white sugar as a health food. While she pours half a cup into her smoothies, experts are raising red flags about misinformation, metabolic chaos and cavity concerns. She's not the first to pitch radical eating habits online – but her latest "glucose lifestyle" might be one of the most extreme.
If that's all left a slightly sour taste, let us sweeten the deal with breakfast. In his Borough Market column, Mark Riddaway traces the full English from its aristocratic origins to its modern-day caff fame, revealing a dish shaped by class, empire, war and a nation's unrelenting love of bacon. But if you're ready to branch out, we've got bold new breakfast recipes to try – from a fiery nduja shakshuka and turmeric omelette to buckwheat pancakes and fennel-scented duck eggs.
And finally, as tomato season reaches its juicy peak, we've rounded up the best ways to celebrate summer's most versatile fruit. Think tomato tarte tatin, pan-fried mackerel with cherry tomatoes and lemon caper dressing and Eleanor Steafel's low-effort tomato risotto. There's even a fermented salsa and a tomato-melon vodka soda (yes, really) – proof that there's nothing this humble fruit can't do.
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How politics, ultra-processed food and toxic masculinity are killing the Mediterranean diet |
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It's hailed as the gold standard of healthy eating, but in the countries where it was born, the Mediterranean diet is being pushed aside. Hannah Twiggs speaks to a Spanish nutritionist about what has changed and the one thing that might save it
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Flick through TikTok, thumb through the latest nutritionist's cookbook or tune into morning TV and you'll be bombarded with praise for the Mediterranean diet.
Touted as the ultimate blueprint for healthy eating, it's plant-forward, low in meat and fish, and virtually free of ultra-processed foods (UPF). Rich in fibre, healthy fats and antioxidants. It's a diet which has been linked to better gut health, longer life and lower risk of chronic disease – and it underpins the world's so-called blue zones, where people frequently live to 100 and beyond.
Yet in the countries where it was born, it's becoming less popular.
"Spain and other parts of southern Europe are famous because of the Mediterranean diet," says Dr Rubén Fernández-Rodríguez, a nutritional psychiatrist and researcher at the University of Granada, "but our diets are shifting because of convenience, the price of whole plant-based food, and because we don't have time to cook. We live fast. We need fast things ready to go."
There's a growing irony at the heart of the Mediterranean diet's global fame: while it's praised as a model for healthy, sustainable eating, its own future is increasingly under threat – and the very thing blamed for its decline might also hold the key to its survival.
Recent research shows that adherence to the traditional Mediterranean diet is in steady decline across southern Europe, even in the countries where it originated...
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