Francisco Abad Joy: "The Mediterranean diet is a myth"

Francisco Abad Joy (Pamplona, ​​1950), physician, writer and member of the Academy of Gastronomy Aragon, has just published the book "Outlines of Spanish cuisine and culinary twentieth century) '.

What motivated you to write about food twentieth century?

It is a century in which important changes occurred because of things related to food. In the nineteenth century there were major milestones that influenced the culture and way of being. In the twentieth there are changes that condition the life itself, such as transportation revolution and international relations. There are more products and facilitates the exchange, so that the conditions of life change for the better every fifteen or twenty years.

It is said that we are living in the twenty-first as a culinary revolution.
Maybe, but it will be a revolution whose technological changes have little application. The product appears to have a more secondary importance the process. Technologies are used that are not available to the domestic kitchen. In contrast, in the twentieth there was a radical leap. First is generalized economic kitchen, replacing the fire. Then comes the pressure cooker, the generalization of the cooling-fridges and fridge-, and the crusher, which produces an important leap in feeding the population.
So much does the fact that they can easily grind food?
Very much, as it is found in the statistics of military service, as it recorded the height and weight of recruits. It is seen that when there is the mixer incorporates big jump because it allows porridge for babies with protein. Above, were all flours. The arrival of microwave also modifies the customs because it allows warm meals prepared in advance, either at home or in the food industry.
However, that developmentalism we departed from the Mediterranean diet Or Beyond Diet.
Yes, it is a very curious phenomenon that occurs from the fifties, when there are better supplies. As we're separated from the Mediterranean diet, increasing height, the woman's fertile period, life expectancy and fitness. It happens that protein intake increases-is generalized frozen hake consumption and farm chickens and quality fats, such as olive oil make now.
But often we are told to get away from that diet is bad for health.
Cardiovascular mortality is announced as inevitable does not happen. It is associated in a very doubtful feeding cardiovascular disease. The Mediterranean diet is a myth. The best nutrition and soap made truly wonderful.

The doctor and gourmet Francisco Abad Joy (Photo of Diego Garcia).

What about what the gurus of haute cuisine?
What you do now is pure marketing and gullibility. Do not usually eat in such restaurants from time to time. It will be an experience, but not replacing anything in society. There is a narcissistic self-absorption that alone translates into poor imitations. It is an entertainment for the elite gold visa. It's more media than anything else. It is scandalous the amount of money being buried in these research projects culinary technology, developing techniques that have no application in the overall food culture.
What about what you eat at home?
People increasingly knows less kitchen. Come back on what our grandparents knew. It has lost family life around a table-by precooking and television-and all that that entails: no transmission of culinary and cultural values, and strengthens the bonds. Lunch and dinner at the same time allows for a peculiar relationships in a family hierarchy and strengthen the links between the people of that micro-society in which learning occurs, also culinary. Also, what you eat at a table are not snacks, but more or less elaborate preparations and varied that educate the taste.
What about the future, how you see it?
Not good, since this leads to an acculturated society in all aspects, a society that is much easier to handle and manipulate. The way to understand a culture the food is very important to be familiar. If all of that is rolled all values ​​quoted us.