A study published on Monday on the benefits of a "Mediterranean diet" found that including a higher number of these foods is linked to a lower risk of heart attack and stroke in people who already have heart disease. However the research also found that a moderate consumption of foods typical in a "Western diet," such as refined carbohydrates, deep fried foods, sugars and desserts, may not always have the negative health consequences expected…
…Surprisingly the team also found no evidence to suggest that consuming a higher number of unhealthy foods typical of a "Western Diet" caused an increase in MACE, with results suggesting that including more healthy foods in the diet was more important than avoiding unhealthy foods.
However lead author Professor Ralph Stewart warned that the findings did not mean that people could consume unhealthy foods freely, with the study's limitations making it difficult to assess exactly what the harm of these unhealthy foods may be, concluding that "The main message is that some foods -- and particularly fruit and vegetables -- seem to lower the risk of heart attacks and strokes... If you eat more of these foods in preference to others, you may lower your risk
The way I would interpret these data is that eating healthy reduces your risk of disease, but the occasional “cheat meal” or the occasional “unhealthy snack” is not going to harm you, as long as those more uhealthy foods are consumed infrequently and in moderation, and in the context of an overall healthy diet.
One has to use judgment. Eating a small bag of pretzels a couple of times per week, or one slice of pie, or a cheeseburger and fries, or a cookie very once in a while, is not going to harm the typically heathy person. But such foods cannot be consumed in excess or too frequently; instead the base foundation of your diet has to be the “Mediterranean diet” type foods.
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