The Cretan diet is the traditional diet of the Mediterranean island of Crete, a typical case of the so-called "Mediterranean diet".
The core of this diet consists of food derived from natural sources, whereas food of animal origin was more peripheral in nature. In general, people consumed seasonal products, available in the wider local area, which underwent minimal processing or none at all. The traditional diet was widespread in the island until the 1960s, when with improving living standards, alimentary patterns changed towards more meat and other animal-derived produce.
Fresh and dried fruits, pulses, endemic wild herbs and aromatic plants, and rough cereals, whose cultivation was favored by the regional climate, were consumed in great amounts and constituted the base of the Cretan diet during that period. Dairy products were consumed on a daily basis in low to moderate quantities. Poultry and fish were consumed on a weekly basis in moderate quantities, whereas red meat was consumed only a few times a month. All animals were free-range, as industrialized animal husbandry was absent at the time: hens were fed local grain and were left to forage, pigs were fed leftovers, and cattle were exclusively grass-fed.
The Cretan diet of the 1960s has quite a few differences compared to other Mediterranean diets of the same period. More specifically, the 1960 Seven Country Study (involving 13.000 men from Finland, Netherlands, Japan, United States, Italy, Yugoslavia and Greece) has demonstrated that in Crete the consumption of olive oil, pulses, fruits and potatoes was higher compared to the consumption of the same type of food in South Italy. On the other hand, red meat, fish and cereals were consumed in smaller quantities.
Several studies have been carried out to test the Cretan diet's effect on human health. The island had attracted the attention of the scientific community as early as 1948, when researchers from the Rockefeller Foundation were summoned by the Greek government in an attempt to improve, in the post-war era, the "bad" living conditions of the Cretan population. Within this framework, a detailed assessment of the Cretan diet was performed, and –to the surprise of the researchers– it proved to be nutritionally sufficient, with only a few exceptions which were limited to areas with a very low income and very limited food production by the families themselves.
Initially, the protective effect of the Cretan diet for human health was attributed to its high monounsaturated fat content, due to the daily use of olive oil, as well as to low saturated fat, due to the low consumption of red meat. Today it is recognized that this particular nutritional scheme possesses important additional features, providing the necessary micro-constituents (i.e. vitamins and minerals), being rich in ω-3 fatty acids, vegetable fibres, antioxidants and various phytochemicals, which have significant influence on several body functions, and a beneficial effect on health.