Crunchy Cretans

Richard Barrett sends along this fascinating NPR story about the astonishingly good health of the people of Crete, and how it relates to their diet. Excerpt:

Just three years after [World War II], American scientists arrived on the Greek island of Crete to help rebuild. The wartime survivors still scraped by on the tiniest portions of food, so the scientists were amazed by what they saw.

Scientists found the people of Crete in excellent health even after the war, explained Dr. Anthony Kafatos of the University of Crete's School of Medicine. He said that after the war, there was no malnutrition.

And when compared with people in wealthy America, people in Crete were healthier — by far.

Kafatos said it had to do with diet: Although people had little food, what they had was fresh, in season and often what they grew themselves.

"The families here in Crete, they produced everything they wanted at home," Kafatos said. "And they had no supermarkets, no electricity, no refrigerator. So they had only seasonal foods."

It was a diet with lots of fruit, vegetables, bread, cereals and fish. Also a lot of fat. But in Crete, it wasn't what nutritionists would later call "bad fat."

Kafatos said for that balance, Greeks can thank the Greek Orthodox Church and its requirement for fasting.

"One hundred and eighty days per year, half a year, they have no animal products — no meat, no eggs no dairy products."

Instead, people in Crete got most of their fat from the olive groves that covered much of the island. They used more olive oil than any other place in the world.

Another team of American scientists — this time nutritionists — arrived in 1960 to follow men who survived war. Through the first 10 years of their study, not one man died of a heart attack. The first death from a heart attack would come years later, and he was a village butcher. Cancer, too, was rare.

So why aren't the Cretans as healthy today, despite greater material wealth and abundance? Read on:

In Crete, many women now work outside the home. Everyone is busier. Few people have time to make their own cheese anymore, and that's true in Crete, but also in the United States and pretty much everywhere. It's quicker, easier and cheaper to buy packaged and processed cheese at the supermarket.

At the University of Crete, Kafatos has continued the work of the American nutritionists who came here almost 50 years ago. He worries about the way people in Crete eat and live today.

"They have supermarket and fast-food chains, now, all over," he said. "They have the television, sitting for many hours in front of the television; no physical activity, a lot of food — bad quality food."

As a result, people in Crete can no longer claim to be healthier than people in the United States. Most people in Crete no longer follow the healthy eating and exercise patterns of their grandparents.

In a study Kafatos did last year, he found half the women in Crete obese and almost 40 percent of the men. According to another study, 40 percent of kids are obese, as well. And smoking is a problem: About half of adults smoke.

Kafatos nods toward the building next door. It's the new hospital built in the 1990s with a wing to treat people — often young men — who have had heart attacks.

In post-war Crete, heart disease was rare.

"It was an unknown disease," Kafatos said. "And now if you go to next hospital, here the corridors are full of patients 40 and 50 years old. So it's a dramatic change, I would say."

In my house, Julie and I have had to recognize that for various reasons -- some good, others not -- we've really slacked up on our commitment to healthy eating. It's mostly out of busy-ness. But we've really got to quit our backsliding. We're just about at the point of deciding to cut refined flour and sugar out of our diet, as a start.

I'd like to hear from some of you about the way you eat in your house, especially if you have kids ... and double-plus especially if you have finicky kids.