Sardines, Sushi and the Healthiest Diets on Earth

Gourmet magazine has a great Q&A with Daphne Miller, author of the book, The Jungle Effect: A Doctor Discovers the Healthiest Diets from Around the World - Why They Work and How to Bring Them Home. Miller, who practices family medicine in California, traveled the world to study indigenous cuisines and find out why they are so much healthier than the typical American diet. Think many places in Japan and Crete, China and West Africa, where the food is local, whole and never processed.

I was especially happy to see her advocating for the sardine, that most misunderstood and delicious of small fish. Sardines are still popular on Crete, despite the island’s depressing trend of importing deep-fried and heavy-cream-soaked food for tourists. Try roasting fresh sardines with garlic, tomato and olive oil—the Chicken McNugget could never compete.

Related on World Hum:
* The Oreo Goes Global
* Seeking Salmon in Southeast Alaska

Photo by avlxyz via Flickr (Creative Commons).

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