Mediterranean Diet Ranked As Healthiest Diet Sixth Year In A Row

A panel of experts for US News & World Report has ranked the Mediterranean Diet as the healthiest way to eat for the sixth year in a row.

The eating plan, based on traditional consumption patterns in countries like Greece, Italy, and Spain, includes plenty of vegetables, healthy fats like olive oil, lean protein such as seafood, and complex carbohydrates like whole grains and beans.

The Mediterranean diet has dominated the rankings in recent years, in part because it balances good nutrition with being easy to follow, according to Gretel Schueller, the managing health editor at U.S. News & World Report.

“The diets that rise to the top are ones we’ve known for years use a common sense approach to healthy eating, incorporate whole foods, and are flexible.”

According to experts, the Mediterranean diet has evidence-based health benefits and incorporates a wide range of foods that make it easy to stick to long-term, avoiding the restrictiveness and extremes that tend to cause diets to fail long-term.

The rankings were determined by a panel of specialists in nutrition, heart health, diabetes, and weight loss, who ranked 24 diets (down from 40 last year).

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The panelists weigh considerations such as long-term sustainability, accessibility of ingredients, the potential for weight loss, and research on how diets may affect the risks of chronic illnesses.

According to Schueller, the Mediterranean diet checks all boxes by emphasizing a balanced variety of unprocessed foods, without specific calorie or nutrient limits.

Other top contenders like the DASH diet and flexitarian diet have similar traits.

In addition to being named the best diet overall and the best plant-based diet overall, the Mediterranean diet ranked highly for heart health and diabetes management.

It also tied for first place in two categories that are new to the rankings this year, best diets for bone and joint health and best family-friendly diets. The family-friendly designation reflects the fact that the Mediterranean diet includes accessible ingredients and meals that are easy to prepare and can be appropriate for all ages.

“It’s looking at real-world constraints like budget and how easy it is to find ingredients, as well as nutritional value for different ages so that everyone more or less could eat from the same table.”

Although the Mediterranean diet can help with long-term weight loss, it also ranks poorly for fast weight loss and doesn’t instruct how much you should eat, or specific meal plans.