The Atlantic Diet has made headlines around the world after new studies showed that people who followed the diet lost several inches around their waists.
The study was published in the journal JAMA Network OpenThe study demonstrated that those who followed this diet reduced their risk of metabolic syndrome by one-third in just six months.
Metabolic syndrome is made up of five major health risks, including high blood sugar, high blood pressure, and a larger waistline. If left untreated, it can lead to diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.
Experts have rushed to explain this new diet, but essentially the Atlantic Diet is best understood as a cousin of the well-studied and praised Mediterranean Diet. It shares many of the key elements, but there are some notable differences as well. Read on for all the info you need, or skip straight to the 5-Day Atlantic Diet Plan and Recipes.
Although the name suggests that this diet covers a vast maritime region, the Atlantic Diet focuses on a fairly specific region: the traditional cuisine of northern Portugal and the Galicia region in northwestern Spain.
Like the Mediterranean diet, the Atlantic diet emphasizes:
- Fresh seasonal vegetables
- Eat fish 3-4 times a week
- Communal meals and traditional cooking
- Starchy carbohydrates such as potatoes
- Red meats such as pork and beef
- Cod, dairy products, and cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli
“The Atlantic Diet mirrors the Mediterranean diet, the world’s best-studied, with its emphasis on seafood, fruits, vegetables, whole grains and healthy fats, but it also places an emphasis on cruciferous vegetables such as kale and cabbage and other starchy carbohydrates such as potatoes and bread,” says Nicola Ludlum Raine, dietician and author of the upcoming book, “The Atlantic Diet: A Guide to Dietary Supplements.” How to avoid ultra-processed foods.
It’s based around cod, potatoes and broccoli, so ingredients will be familiar to many Brits.
“This resembles the British diet, or at least foods that could be produced much more easily in the UK than some of the Mediterranean diet,” says Richard Hoffman, associate lecturer in nutrition at the University of Hertfordshire.
Some may be surprised by the inclusion of potatoes, pork and dairy, as these foods are generally considered to be unhealthy, but a key difference is how they are prepared and eaten: in the UK pork is often eaten as bacon or grilled pork chops, whereas in the Atlantic diet it is more often prepared as a stew.
“People forget that the main carcinogens in red meat are produced during cooking, whether it’s seared, fried or barbecued at high temperatures, and are linked to cancer and type 2 diabetes,” Hoffman points out. “But when you stew the meat, you might brown it a little bit, but then you cook it with olive oil, onion, rosemary and garlic, which are antioxidants, and that suppresses inflammatory markers.”
Similarly, potatoes are often eaten in their skin, in vegetable soup or baked, rather than as chips or mash, reducing the impact on blood sugar levels. “If you eat vegetable soup, you’re still getting all the nutrients, whereas in the UK we cook our vegetables the old-fashioned way, by boiling them and discarding the water, so you’re throwing all the nutrients away.”
Dairy products are often made from sheep’s or goat’s milk, which is easy to digest, and many types of cheese and yogurt contain bacteria that are good for gut health.
“We tend to demonise foods like dairy, red meat and potatoes, but we’re not talking about McDonald’s Flurrys here,” says nutritionist Dominique Ludwig. “Yogurt is fermented and contains live probiotics, pork is a good source of protein and zinc, and potatoes are a fantastic, unprocessed, natural food with fibre in the skin, potassium and vitamin C.”
“Carbs aren’t the enemy. They just need to be consumed in moderation — about a quarter of your plate.”
