It’s true that we have been serving our customers with traditional Mediterranean diet recipes, but here’s a new Avalon Pockets health tip – try the green Mediterranean diet.
The Mediterranean diet is one of the oldest and most prolific eating patterns that fosters good health and longevity and will soon be a staple in every household in America and the world. It encourages you to live a healthy lifestyle, emphasizing heart-healthy, plant-based meals made with pure, unprocessed ingredients that include protein-rich fish, beans and legumes, less meat and dairy consumption, and lots of fruits, veggies and olive oil. You will definitely reap incredible benefits such as a longer lifespan and imperviousness from osteoporosis by simply adhering to this diet.
It was previously thought that the Mediterranean diet is the peak of healthy food; however, all that has changed when the green Mediterranean diet was introduced. This high-octane version of the Mediterranean diet is like the vegetarian version of the Med diet and it has also become the most recent Avalon Pockets health tip for our valued readers.
What is the Green Mediterranean Diet?
To put it simply, the green Mediterranean diet is just the same as its predecessor – the Mediterranean diet – except without the meat and dairy products. It builds on the same staples, increasing the amount of green foods you’re eating. Because meat and dairy products tend to cause inflammation, discarding them altogether in the green Mediterranean diet makes it even healthier than its predecessor.
This new version focuses on healthy fats, lean protein, whole gains, and plenty of vegetables just like the Mediterranean diet. However, it removes red meat from your diet and increases your fiber intake. For example, the green Mediterranean diet will require you to consume 28 grams of walnuts per day, 3 or more cups of green tea daily, and also introduce a new plant into your meals each day like wolffia globosa, which is a byproduct of duckweed.
Duckweed is a tiny, bright green aquatic plant that tends to grow in freshwater or slow-moving bodies of water, and it features a high level of nutrients. You will be required to consume 100 mg of wolffia globosa variety each day as a supplement when you’re adhering to the green Mediterranean diet. It is typically made as a powder or ice cube food supplement that you can drink as a tonic. This is the reason why we made the green Mediterranean diet as an important Avalon Pockets health tip.
Research published in Heart found that adding walnuts, green tea, and wolffia globosa into the mix aided in the prevention of any potential nutritional deficiencies that might happen as a consequence of minimized consumption of meat. Wolffia globosa is credited as the protein source replacement for meat while you’re following the green Mediterranean diet.
An Amazing Avalon Pockets Health Tip!
A new study has revealed that the ghrelin hormone is significantly increased when a person is fasting and dieting, fats are expelled from the body (through the burning of calories) and when their insulin sensitivity is improved. Your stomach is responsible for producing the ghrelin hormone and it increases when you sleep or fast, and then it goes back down again after having a meal. In a research published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, data shows that individuals who have higher ghrelin levels after experiencing weight loss have a lower risk of developing diabetes and other metabolic diseases. You’ll be glad to know and understand what the ghrelin hormone is from this Avalon Pockets health tip article.
The researchers also discovered that individuals who adhere to the green Mediterranean diet had higher ghrelin hormones compared to those who follow the traditional Mediterranean diet. They noted that all of the participants of the experiment paired their diet with regular physical activity as well. Dr. Gal Tsaban, a researcher- cardiologist and author of the study at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Soroka University Medical Center in Beer-Sheva, Israel, told Healthline that weight loss that’s based on one’s minimalist lifestyle (in terms of food and their diet in general) had consistent elevated levels of ghrelin and that due to their green-Mediterranean lifestyle, they also had higher levels of ghrelin and larger cardio-metabolic benefits.
This is one Avalon Pockets health tip that you shouldn’t ignore!
What is Ghrelin?
Ghrelin is a naturally-occurring hormone in your stomach and it is responsible for making you feel hungry by sending signals to your brain that you need food. It is sometimes referred to as the “hunger hormone” or lenomorelin. Ghrelin’s main function is to increase appetite. It makes you feel hungry in order for you to consume food (whether in substantial or excessive amounts), increase calories in your body and store them as fat. In addition, it affects your sleep/wake cycle, reward-seeking behavior, taste sensation, and carbohydrate metabolism.
The problem with the ghrelin hormone is that as it builds up in your body, it also makes you a glutton which can be bad for your health. Therefore, if you want to lose weight, lowering your ghrelin levels can be beneficial. But don’t be too quick to hate the ghrelin hormone immediately, because in prehistoric times it helped our ancestors maintain a moderate level of body fat. Having the right amount of body fat back then was necessary for many reasons, one being that it prevents them from going out hunting often which increases the likelihood of them getting attacked by wild animals. Second it helps keep the body warm during winter or at night when the temperatures drop.
It is important to understand what the ghrelin hormone does and how it works for this Avalon Pockets health tip to work.
What Causes Ghrelin to Rise?
As already stated above, ghrelin hormones increases when you’ve hadn’t had anything to eat for a long period of time, but they decrease again after a nice meal. While it may seem a forgone conclusion that obese people ought to have higher levels of ghrelin, the truth can be a completely different case. In fact, some research suggests ghrelin levels are actually lower in people with obesity and they’re simply just a bit more sensitive to it than most of us.
On the other hand, alternate research data suggests that people become obese due to an overly active ghrelin receptor, known as GHS-R, which forces them to eat more calories. It is actually the ghrelin hormones that cause problems with your weight loss aspirations, but it is a built-in design by Mother Nature to help protect you from starvation. When you’re on a weight loss diet, because you’re carb backloading you’re ghrelin hormones increases and your leptin (fullness hormones) also decreases. This is why it’s very difficult to lose weight, because it makes you hungry most of the time and people often give in to their hunger.
The Avalon Pockets health tip which is to go green Mediterranean diet transcends all this and help you lose weight without feeling the need to eat more calories.
How Dieting Impacts Ghrelin Levels
Also called the “hunger hormone,” ghrelin helps stimulate your appetite. Ghrelins boost up when you’re dieting and fasting (and also when you’re sleeping), which in turn will send signals to your brain telling it that you need sustenance. After having a good meal, your ghrelin levels goes down.
“During prolonged fasting conditions, this hormone seems to have an important role in maintenance of glycemic levels and metabolism,” Tsaban explained.
Obesity, insulin resistance, and the development of metabolic diseases have been found to be caused by low ghrelin levels. What the researchers want to do next is to determine how fasting ghrelin levels fluctuate during various dieting interventions and how it contributes to making people obese and affects their metabolic processes such as insulin sensitivity. The importance of a balanced diet has always been a staple advocacy of this website, which is why our new Avalon Pockets health tip emphasizes it even more with the green Mediterranean diet.
The research team conducted an 18-month experiment where they monitored and evaluated fasting ghrelin levels in 294 test subjects that had medical conditions like abdominal obesity or dyslipidemia (people who have disproportionate levels of fat and cholesterol in their blood).
The participants were given 3 choices, which allowed them to adhere to either of the following diet plans:
- Mediterranean diet
- Green Mediterranean diet
- An eating plan following healthy dietary guidelines
They were also required to do exercises on a regular basis.
The data shows that the individuals who adhered to the green Mediterranean diet had the highest fasting ghrelin levels. Surprisingly, those who were on the traditional Med diet came in second place and those on the healthy eating plan were on the last place of the tally. Clearly this makes our Avalon Pockets health tip more and more sense now!
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The researchers draw a link between the elevated fasting ghrelin levels recorded in people who adhered to the green Mediterranean diet with reduced liver fat and better cardiometabolic health.
“The results of our study suggest that adherence to the green-Mediterranean is feasible and that this lifestyle, as [any] healthy lifestyle, requires motivation and commitment from the individual who decides to make a change in his/her lifestyle,” Tsaban said.
How to Lower Ghrelin and Reduce Hunger
From what the researchers found out about the ghrelin hormone, they deduced that it cannot be controlled with drugs, diets, or supplements. However, you can do something about it to keep it at healthy levels.
Here are some tips on how to do it:
- Keep your weight close to your ideal BMI. Studies show that obese people tend to have higher levels of ghrelin.
- Prioritize sleep. Studies show that an imbalanced sleep/wake cycle causes your ghrelin levels to surge.
- Increase muscle mass. More muscle mass and less fat in the body is associated with lower levels of ghrelin.
- Eat more protein. Being on a high protein diet makes you feel full even if you didn’t eat that much, which reduces hunger. This actually reduces ghrelin hormones in your gut.
- Avoid abrupt weight changes. An old research work done on postmenopausal women show that drastic weight changes plus incoherent dieting can cause an imbalance in hormone production, including ghrelin.
This Avalon Pockets health tip has more to offer than you thought.
Going “Green Med” is Even Better for Your Health
It has been known since post-WW 2 that the short- and long-term health benefits of the Mediterranean diet is considerable for you. However, the green Mediterranean diet has a much health benefits package such as a better heart health even for elderly people. The research data doesn’t lie, in fact, the researchers said that individuals who adhere to the green Mediterranean diet experience more health benefits compared to those who follow the traditional Med diet or a standard healthy diet.
The test subjects who participated in the researchers’ experiment, particularly those who followed the green Mediterranean diet saw improvements in their heart health, lowering their risk for potential illnesses. It also helped them achieved their ideal BMI, lower their bad cholesterol, blood pressure, and even C-reactive protein (an inflammatory indicator). With much of these critical heart health components reduced to their ideal levels, the green Mediterranean diet essentially help prevent any health problems that people, who on non-green Med diet, are often susceptible to. Another health benefit it offers is fast and efficient weight loss.
The vegetarian and flexitarian people will love it! This is the best Avalon Pockets health tip we’ve come up with so far. The green Mediterranean diet might as well be both a vegetarian- and flexitarian-friendly diet due to its preference of plant-based protein consumption, rather than from animal sources. While the traditional Mediterranean diet highlights seafood in favor of red meat and limits dairy, the green version is all about plants. It removes red and even white meat (which is considered better than red meat) all together and takes away your dependency on animal-based protein sources.
The green Mediterranean diet will also limit your egg and dairy consumption, or over time once you get accustomed to it, you will reject foods that are not healthy all together. With greater emphasis on nuts, seeds, legumes, and plants, the foundation of this variation is all about moving away from animal products of all kinds. This basically makes the green Mediterranean diet an ideal choice for people who are considering trying a vegetarian or mostly plant-based diet, or vegetarians who have been wondering whether they can incorporate the Mediterranean diet (or at least the green version of it) into their lifestyle.
How to Tweak the Mediterranean Diet and Go Green
If you’re already a fan of the traditional Mediterranean diet, then you’ll be even more excited to try its green version! While the dairy and meat products included in the traditional Med diet have some good nutrients, there is no beating green leafy vegetables, fruits and other plant-based proteins, which is found in the green Mediterranean diet. Whatever your goal is with trying out the green Mediterranean (e.g. reduce meat consumption, planning for long term health benefits, or want to sample protein sources other than from meat), you can be sure that it is easy to prepare and adhere to.
Here’s our Avalon Pockets health tip on following the green Mediterranean diet:
- Produce of any kind
- Whole grains
- Nuts and seeds
- Green tea
- Wolffia globosa
The secret to maximizing the health benefits of this diet plan is to focus on your green tea consumption. It is recommended that you drink 3 – 4 cups of green tea every day in order to experience its amazing revitalizing effects. You’ll also need to include wolffia globosa in your diet as it contains more than half of the nutrients you need based on your nutritionist’s RDA (recommended daily allowance). The key to success in adhering to the green Mediterranean diet is to do a “withdrawal” type of method in the way you consume meat. Keep in mind that you may have been eating meat your whole life (maybe even more than what you’d like to admit), so it won’t be easy to give it up overnight. Therefore, do it little by little and one step at a time, but you are actually still allowed to eat meat in the green Mediterranean diet – just not too much though.
The Bottom Line
Having now known that the ghrelin hormone is responsible for making you feel hungry and maybe even force you to eat more than what you need (depending on the circumstances), it is necessary for you to consciously keep it high in your gut. However, as the researchers said, there is no way to control this hormone and that the only way to benefit from it is to adhere to the green Mediterranean diet. The ghrelin hormone is associated with fat loss and improved insulin sensitivity. The findings also suggest that individuals who have higher ghrelin levels after experiencing weight loss have a lower risk of diabetes and other metabolic diseases.
Remember this Avalon Pockets health tip and whether you choose to follow the traditional or the green Mediterranean diet, they both offer excellent health benefits and can change your lifestyle forever.
