About

Comments Off on About | March 21, 2014

Ciao,

I’m Daniel DiTuro and welcome to italianmeddiet.com.

In 2009 I published Live Longer and Healthier Eating Foods You Love: On a Southern Italian Mediterranean Diet. The book features many of my parents southern Italian recipes. Recipes from the state of Apulia and specifically the area around the capitol Bari.

This website and my YouTube video channel started in 2012.

For some people cooking comes easy. For others, recipes can be challenging. If a picture is worth a 1000 words, a video is worth 10,000 or more words.

Rather than publish new editions of my book, I have devoted time to producing and publishing short videos about most recipes in the book, new recipes not included in the book, and videos about diet, diet plans, nutrition, exercise, and more.

A Mediterrranean diet is not and has never been a weight loss diet plan like so many diet in the United States. Many Americans are overweight or obese, and American entraprneus have stepped up to help people who want or need to lose weight to do it fast, fast, fast on THEIR plan.

Fad Diet’s Don’t Work!

Most diets, especially fad diets, fail. It is a proven fact. Yes, you can lose weight. But more often than not, dieter’s gain it all back and more when they “go off the diet.”

Low carb, low fat, high protein, high fat, gluten-free, fast metabolism, Paleo, keto, and fat burner. It doesn’t matter what the diet plan is called, they do not work…long term. And that should be a sustainable diets goal. To help people lose wight and keep it off.

But most fad diets are overly restrictive and unsustainable.

Secret Formula For Success!

Every diet plan has a “secret formula” for rapid, permanent weight loss. It begs the question… after more than 40 years of miracle diet plans with their secrets for successfully losing weight why are Americans fatter than ever? Something is very wrong.

I have never dieted, and have maintained my ideal weight between 150 and 155 pounds for almost 40 years while eating bread, pasta, pizza, muffins, steak, tacos, eggs, cake, cookies, potatoes, and chocolate. You name it. foods banned or restricted by many diet plans.

I eat what I want and have never been overweight or needed medication to lower cholesterol or blood pressure.

My diet does not include flax or chia seeds, kale, protein and energy bars and drinks, or high caffeine energy drinks with zero calories.

In most cases, the problem is not a food or foods, the problem is eating too much of the wrong foods.

Southern Italians eating a Mediterranean diet, in general, are healthier, have fewer chronic diseases and live longer than Americans on the Standard American Diet (SAD) of fast foods and prepared foods.

Real Food vs. Junk Food

What is my secret?

I was raised and prefer eating real food not mass produced, multinational company manufactured junk foods, and fast foods loaded with calories, sodium, additives, fillers, preservatives, artificial colors, and flavors.

Beef Tenderloin Meal

The beef tenderloin meal, yes the entire meal pictured above, has 300 less calories compared to the hamburger pictured below while providing more food by weight. And believe it or not, it costs less than many fast food meals. About 25% of the cost of fast food items is the food. The other 75% is for operating expenses including the CEOs private jet, chauffeur driving limousine, and 24 hour security.

Hamburger

Recipes With Instructional Videos

Many recipes on this site have free instructional videos covering all the ingredients in the recipe and method of preparation. You can access all videos on my YouTube channel.

Nutrition Facts

Every recipe on this site and in my videos have complete nutrition information based on the USDA Nutrition Data Base. In some cases, the nutrition information on this website may differ slightly from the values in their associated video. This is due to the ingredients used in a recipe and portion size.

Americans are becoming more health conscious and food manufacturers are listening.

In that event the nutrition information in the video differs from the information in this site’s recipe, the information on this website is the most current and accurate.

For recipes with a range of servings, for example 6 to 8 servings, nutrition information is always based on the largest portion size (6 servings) unlike processed foods which often base nutrition facts on unrealistically small portion sizes.

700 Calorie Meals

In November 2016, I started a new series of 700 Calorie Meals videos. 700 Calorie Meals began as a new website, but quickly evolved into a new series of videos highlighting sample meals ranging from 500 to 800 calories to help make healthier choices when eating at home or dining out.

Most overweight or obese people eat too many calories for their activity level and research shows many dieters underestimate the number of calories they eat by up to 50 percent. If need 2,000 to 2,500 calories per day to maintain a healthy weight and eat 3,000 calories per day you will have a 3,000 calorie body.

Sample 700 Calorie Meals are based on recipes from my book and this website. The meals the same or more food with fewer calories and less saturated fat and sodium compared to processed foods, fast foods, and restaurant foods.

Healthy Home Cooking

Home cooking puts you in control of your health not corporate executives who answer to investors and Wall Street analysts. A fast food CEO summed up the industries position and philosophy when he stated for the record:

“I sell what people want, not what they need.”

Food manufacturers and restaurants do not care if you die of a heart attack or stroke from eating an unhealthy diet high in calories and saturated fat. Corporations embrace using preservatives, artificial ingredients, fillers to reduce costs while spending billions of dollars in advertising to lure you to eat food containing a long list of ingredients you would never use at home and are not even available to the public. Granted, the FDA approves most preservatives and artificial ingredients used in the United States, but they also approved trans fat.

In 2015, the FDA officially banned the use of trans fat in United States. But trans fat did not disappear overnight. Companies have until 2018 to comply or request a waiver. While most companies met the 2018 deadline, some foods are still made using trans fat. They key words are partially hydrogenated. If you see partially hydrogenated listed, that food contains trans fat.

Reduced FDA oversight currently allows food companies to use untested man-made ingredients in prepared foods.

But you can take control of your diet. Live longer, live healthier, and live happier. It is easier than you think.

This site and my YouTube channel are  dedicated to helping you eat better and achieve your diet and nutrition goals.

Buon Appetito!

Daniel DiTuro