Originally Posted by MonsieurChrono

It'd probably be for the worse to emulate it, not with respect to health I think, but with respect to quality/fun of life, as it is too restrictive an approach, and not necessary. Many (most?) of the animals that existed then do not exist now anyway, though we can find animals with similar compositions I guess.

I'm from Greece and I wouldn't be able to give you an exact definition of the traditional Mediterranean diet (scratch today's diet, because we are 1st or 2nd in child obesity in Europe, I think the ranking depends on the age-range.) But, for example, our culture used to have a very big religious aspect, the Greek Orthodox Church and all that, and there is the period of the Great Lent, where we are supposed to fast for 40 days to emulate the 40 days of Jesus's fasting in the desert and enduring temptation by Satan. So, you are supposed to physically suffer to a certain extent, in order to connect with your spirituality, strengthen your ideals/morals, come closer to God, etc. What is prohibited? Meat, fish, dairy products, eggs, wine, and (olive) oil. Nobody cares about beans, what are you gonna do? Eat a kilo of them without even oil? Good luck passing them through your intestines.

So, even if I didn't know how my (great) grand-parents lived, the above would already be a strong indication that meat, fish, dairy products, eggs, wine, and (olive) oil form the backbone of the Greek diet. But I do know how they lived, and in general, yes, on one hand there were plenty of vegetables and wild herbs, basically anything that you can imagine growing in a small garden or find in nature (chorta are pretty good), but on the other hand the biggest part of nutrition was coming from eggs, dairy, mostly in the form of Greek yogurt, tzatziki dip, Feta cheese, and other hard cheeses like graviera and kasseri, small and big fish (sardines, obviously) and fish roe, shellfish, especially octupus, squid (calamari), and shrimp, lamb, goat, poultry, porc, wild boar, rabbit, other game meat like some small birds (blackbirds), and to a lesser extent beef (compared to lamb and goat especially). So animal proteins were the base, and plants were used to create as much volume as possible. You have to consider that the population of the past was very poor, so also very resourceful. Now some had more game meat (in the mountains), and others more fish (near the sea), but it was some distribution of those items.

You were going to plow the fields all day? Scrambled eggs with feta cheese and a ton of olive oil in the pan (tsaklatista), a literal fat + protein bomb, with some bread and a tomato and olives and you were good to go. Greek salad, good stuff, always comes with feta cheese, you'd probably go to jail if you offered one without it. Small snacks, mezedes (tapas), are typically meat balls, small fish, some cold cut, some cheese in various shapes and forms, or stuffed vine leaves with minced meat and rice, dolmadakia. Greek yogurt, 10% fat, straggisto, with honey, nuts, and fruit if there were any could be a nice small meal too.

Now, to be clear, definitely not a meat-fest as some people will make it out to be, but also not really a plant-based diet.