Beyond the Mediterranean Diet: Why Your Grandmother's Cooking Was Probably Healthier

If you've read any nutrition writing in the last twenty years, you've been told, repeatedly, that the Mediterranean diet is the healthiest way to eat. Olive oil, fish, vegetables, legumes, modest wine, long lunches in the Italian countryside.

The Mediterranean diet has real evidence behind it, that's not the issue. The issue is that an entire field has flattened the global landscape of nutritionally excellent food traditions into one Italian-Greek-Spanish ideal, while treating most other cultures' foods as either neutral, suspect, or in need of "healthification."

What actually makes a diet healthy?

Strip away the branding, and the dietary patterns with the strongest evidence share a small set of features. Lots of plants, in many forms. Legumes regularly. A wide range of herbs and spices. Fermented foods. Whole or minimally processed grains. Animal foods in modest amounts and many forms — small fish, eggs, organ meats. Food eaten in community.

Many traditional cuisines around the world fit this description as well as or better than the Mediterranean does. They just don't have the marketing.

Healthy traditional diets you don't hear about

Caribbean and Latin American home cooking — beans, rice, root vegetables, plantains in many forms, leafy greens, sofrito-based stews, fish, citrus, peppers, an enormous range of fruit — has been routinely overlooked in favor of patterns that look more like northern European cuisines. The bean-and-rice pairing alone is one of the great nutritional architectures of the world. My family's table is built on it.

Ashkenazi Jewish food traditions, before they became the deli sandwich, included substantial amounts of fish, eggs, cabbage and sauerkraut, beets, carrots, root vegetables, beans, barley, and oats. The brisket-and-rugelach version is what most people picture, but the everyday food was much more vegetable- and grain-forward than the holiday food suggests.

West African traditions — leafy stews built around dark greens, peanut and seed sauces, fermented grains, fonio and millet, vegetable-forward soups — are nutritionally dense and have been associated with low rates of metabolic disease in their original forms.

South Asian home cooking — daals, vegetable sabzis, fermented batters, yogurt, whole grains, generous use of turmeric, ginger, and other anti-inflammatory spices — is a beautifully complete dietary pattern.

Indigenous foodways across the Americas — corn, beans, squash, wild greens, game, fish, fermented and preserved foods — represent some of the longest-tested human dietary patterns on the continent.

Why do diasporic communities have higher chronic disease rates?

Often the issue isn't the cultural food. The issue is what happened to it after migration, after industrialization, after access to traditional ingredients was disrupted.

A client whose blood sugar is climbing usually doesn't need to stop eating arroz con habichuelas; she may benefit from more beans, more vegetables, and fewer of the new packaged snacks that have entered her household since her mother's generation.

What culturally responsive nutrition counseling actually looks like

It does not mean tweaking a client's traditional foods to be more like a heart-association handout. It means starting from what they eat, understanding the pattern as a pattern, and identifying the specific places where the modern displaced version has drifted from the traditional one.

Often the answer is: eat more like your grandmother did, not less.

The takeaway

There is no single global cuisine that has the monopoly on health. The Mediterranean diet is one excellent pattern among many.

Your grandmother's food, in most parts of the world, was probably also pretty good for you in its original form. My job, if I'm doing it well, is to help you eat closer to that — not further from it.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Is rice and beans actually healthy?

Yes — extremely. Rice and beans together provide complete protein, substantial fiber, micronutrients, and a slow-release energy profile. It's been a staple of healthy diets across Latin America, the Caribbean, and parts of Asia for centuries, and the modern research supports what those traditions already knew.

2. Are traditional Jewish foods healthy?

The everyday Ashkenazi Jewish diet — fish, eggs, vegetables, root crops, beans, barley, oats — is quite healthy. The deli-and-rugelach version most people picture is largely a holiday-food and Americanized version that wasn't representative of daily eating in Jewish communities historically.

3. Can a low-income diet be healthy?

Yes. Some of the world's healthiest traditional diets are built on inexpensive staples: beans, rice, lentils, eggs, vegetables, small fish, and grains. The illusion that healthy eating requires expensive specialty foods is a marketing problem, not a nutrition truth.

4. Should I follow my cultural diet or the Mediterranean diet?

Most likely your cultural diet, in its traditional form. Almost every traditional diet has a healthy version that fits its origin culture and ingredients. A registered dietitian who's culturally competent can help you identify which parts of your traditional eating pattern are working and where modern displacement has hurt.

→ Check if your insurance covers nutrition counseling (takes 30 seconds): https://signup.faynutrition.com/book/candice-silver/dd3df5

About the Author

Candice Silver, MS, RDN, CDN is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist based in New York City. She holds a Master of Science in nutrition and is credentialed by the Commission on Dietetic Registration (RDN) and certified by New York State (CDN). Candice works primarily with women navigating real-life nutrition questions — from gut health and hormones to family feeding and chronic conditions — with a practice rooted in evidence-based care and cultural respect.

📍 Follow along: Instagram @cs_dietitian • TikTok @CS_Dietitian •  Facebook @candice.silver.2025

📩 Have a question or want to work together? 

Send me a message @ info@candicesilver.com

Check your insurance coverage or book a session: https://signup.faynutrition.com/book/candice-silver/dd3df5