A lot of people have asked me a really interesting question: How does the Smart Fat Program differ from the Mediterranean Diet? While there are some areas of overlap, such as the emphasis on eating lots of Omega-3s, fruits and vegetables, there are several main differences that can allow one to easily distinguish between the two dietary approaches.
To start, the Mediterranean Diet is a pattern of eating, rather than a strict food protocol. Some dishes may incorporate lots of fish and olive oil, while others are heavy on the grains, whereas some eat strictly fruits, nuts and vegetables. The Smart Fat Program, on the other hand, is very regimented: Five servings of smart fat a day, five servings of clean protein a Day, ten servings of fiber every day. Subscribers to the Mediterranean Diet tend to stay away from meat, regardless of the source. This is another point where the Smart Fat Program veers in its own unique direction.
Major proponents of the Mediterranean Diet typically refer to Animal Fats as unhealthy and Vegetable Oils and Vegetable Fats as healthy. The Smart Fat Program draws the line between good & bad fats based on only one thing: Whether or not the fat is toxic. Fat is toxic if it comes from animals that have been on feedlot farms, or fed antibiotics, steroids, bovine growth hormones, or even raised on a grain diet. The Smart Fat Program does encourage eating plenty of fish, but also meat when it is grass-fed, organic and not teeming with toxins. To be clear, toxic fat has nothing to do with whether or not the fat is saturated and unsaturated.
The third major distinction is grains, which are fairly prominent in the Mediterranean Diet and extremely limited on the Smart Fat Program. Even Whole Grains raise your blood sugar, can be very inflammatory, and many contain gluten, which can lead to Leaky Gut that can furthermore result in a chain reaction of health problems. While we do have some grains in limited amounts on the Smart Fat Program, it is not a grain-based diet by any means.
Those are the basic distinctions between the Mediterranean Diet and the Smart Fat Program. There are some similarities between the two, but each has its own unique place. One can think of them as “friendly cousins” that have their like-attributes, but in the end are quite different.
By Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS aka “The Nutrition Myth Buster”™
Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS, also known as “The Nutrition Myth Buster” ™ is a nationally known board-certified nutritionist and expert on diet and weight loss. He has appeared on the Dr. Oz Show, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, and CBS and has contributed to articles in The New York Times, Forbes, The Daily Beast, The Huffington Post, Vanity Fair Online, Men’s Heath, Prevention, and dozens of other print and online publications. He is the best-selling author of 15 books, including The Great Cholesterol Myth (co-authored with Stephen Sinatra, MD). His latest, co-authored with Steven Masley, MD, is Smart Fat: Eat More Fat, Lose More Weight, Get Healthy Now! (Harper One, 2016)
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