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🥙 eat your way to a healthier life

Our colleague Sandee LaMotte recently spent some time traveling in Greece. As a health journalist, she came back with some new perspectives on the Mediterranean diet — an award-winning style of healthy eating. Read more from her about her travels below, but be warned it may trigger a serious bout of wanderlust. 

If LaMotte's photos and stories stir you, we invite you to sign up for the latest newsletter series we’re launching next week — CNN’s Eat, But Better: Mediterranean Style. LaMotte wrote it just before jetting off on her Greek getaway. In her series, you’ll get a full eight weeks of recipes for every meal of the day, including brunch, and tips on how to introduce Mediterranean foods to kids. CNN Insiders get exclusive early access to the series. Click here to sign up. 

☀️ what we can learn from the Mediterranean lifestyle 

The Greek islands! It was a bucket list trip, made even more precious as a getaway after the painful pandemic travel drought. Not long after booking the journey, I was given the opportunity to write a newsletter about the Mediterranean diet, which I had been covering for years at CNN.

I was going to be able to see, smell, taste and take pictures of many of the Greek foods I was writing about, based on recipes handed down over the centuries from the yiayiás to their grandchildren.

Creamy, rich Greek yogurt topped with walnuts and honey was more like a dessert than a classic breakfast. A freshly created spanakopita, the beloved Greek spinach pie, was like nothing I’d tasted in the United States. What a feast for the taste buds! And it didn’t hurt that it was eaten with a view of the cliffs of Santorini.

Traditional Greek salads, called horiatiki, were a revelation. For one, there was no lettuce — just lots of plump, juicy tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers and onions, laced with many varieties of Greek olives, topped with large slabs of fresh feta, and doused in olive oil.

Speaking of olive oil — the king of the Mediterranean diet — it’s such a part of Greek life that if locals think someone is a bit crazy, they say they are “choris ládi” or “losing oil.”

Roasted veggies glistening with olive oil get a sprinkle of seeds and herbs. Zucchini fritters packed with fresh vegetables and herbs were fried lightly in olive oil and served with another Greek staple: tzatziki, a yogurt-based dip full of cucumber, dill and lemon.  

Herbs and spices take precedence over salt and pepper to flavor Mediterranean dishes. Fresh herbs are so important that Greeks grow them in every nook and cranny. In Athens, I saw pots of herbs in windowsills, along sidewalks next to parked cars, and in the base of trees that line the streets. And don’t forget fresh fruit — orange and lemon trees also grow along the sidewalks.

But the Mediterranean “diet” is so much more than food. It’s also based on movement — walking, biking, gardening — mindful eating and the gathering of friends and family. 

Want to learn more? CNN Insiders get first dibs on CNN’s Eat, But Better: Mediterranean Style newsletter learning course. It’s part of CNN’s new Life, But Better initiative to help our readers learn how to live healthier, happier lives. Click here to sign up and eat your way to a healthier lifestyle. 

Each newsletter includes an original, staff-tested recipe by Rahaf Al Bochi — a registered dietitian nutritionist and founder of Olive Tree Nutrition — an introduction to traditional spices, fun facts about the region and healthy challenges you can use to incorporate the Mediterranean manner of life into your own. Won’t you join me?

- Sandee LaMotte is a Wellness writer at CNN. 

🗓️  mark your calendars 

🎧  Listen

In his weekly podcast “Chasing Life,” CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta talks about what we’ve all been forced to do this past year: Wait – in grocery lines, for Covid-19 tests, to see loved ones, for vaccines and more. Gupta talks to experts about how to make it less excruciating. But you’ll have to wait till next Tuesday! 

📺  Watch

A showdown may loom on Capitol Hill tomorrow as Steve Bannon said he won’t comply with a subpoena by the Jan. 6 committee, and our political team will be on it. (Need a refresher on Jan. 6? Check out CNN’s award-winning Assault on Democracy: Paths to Insurrection.)

🔎  Read
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- Written and edited by Beryl Adcock, Tricia Escobedo, Melissa Mahtani and Jessica Sooknanan