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Mediterranean foods

The plant-forward pattern: vegetables, fruit, legumes, wholegrains, nuts, olive oil and fish.

What this list includes and excludes

Includes. Vegetables, fruit and berries, legumes, grains, nuts and seeds, fish and seafood, potatoes, herbs and spices.

Excludes. Red and processed meat, and — conservatively — anything named as fried, candied, sweetened or packed in heavy syrup, since the pattern is about how a food arrives, not only what it is.

The exact rules this page ran

These are printed from the same file the filter reads, so what you see is what ran. A food appears above only if it passed every one of them.

• Source. The row must belong to the USDA FoodData Central SR Legacy source family. Rows without retained provenance are excluded.
• Allowed categories (9). A food outside these categories cannot appear, whatever its name. Köögivili, Puuviljad ja marjad, Kaunviljad, Teravili ja pasta, Pähklid ja seemned, Kala ja mereannid, Kartulid ja mugulad, Vürtsid ja maitseained, Rasvad ja õlid
• Disqualifying words (52). A food whose name contains any of these is removed. beef, pork, bacon, ham,, , ham, sausage, salami, pepperoni, chorizo, frankfurter, chicken, turkey, duck, goose, lamb, mutton, veal, venison, rabbit, liver, tripe, gizzard, giblet, meat, poultry, lard, tallow, gelatin, broth, bouillon, gravy, pate,, blood, brains, heavy syrup, light syrup, french fried, deep fried, candied, sweetened, sugar, glazed, honey roasted, salted, with salt added, margarine, shortening, mayonnaise, salad dressing, hydrogenated, butter, palm kernel
• Rescued false positives (49). A food whose name contains one of these keeps its place even if a disqualifying word also matches — this is what stops "peanut butter" being read as butter. peanut butter, nut butter, sesame butter, cocoa butter, apple butter, shea butter, butternut, buttercup, butterhead, butterbur, butter beans, butterbean, soymilk, soy milk, coconut milk, almond milk, rice milk, oat milk, milk thistle, coconut cream, cream style, cream of tartar, nondairy, non-dairy, bean curd, eggplant, meatless, meat extender, coconut meat, poultry seasoning, lambsquarters, gooseberr, collard, crabapple, honeydew, blood orange, kidney beans, beans, kidney, breadfruit, breadnut, spaghetti squash, unsweetened, without salt, no sugar, sugar-free, unsalted, sugar snap, low sodium, salt not added
• Ranking. The table below is sorted by fibre per 100 g, highest first.

Top 30 by fibre

Source: USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy source family · checked 2026-09-02

What to watch on this pattern

Every restriction removes something useful along with the thing it was aimed at. These are the points that come up most often for mediterranean eating — not a warning against it, and not a list of problems you will have.

• It is a pattern, not a nutrient. What is studied is the whole way of eating — olive oil as the main fat, legumes and vegetables daily, fish regularly, meat rarely, meals shared and unhurried. No single row in a table captures that.
• Olive oil is energy dense. At roughly 9 kcal per gram of fat, oil is the densest thing in most kitchens. "More olive oil" and "fewer calories" are not automatically compatible.
• Fish frequency. Public guidance in most European countries lands around two portions of fish a week, one of them oily. Species advice differs in pregnancy.
• Not automatically low sodium. Olives, capers, cured fish and hard cheese are all traditional and all salty. This list denies names that say salted, but salt still varies.

Source: EFSA Dietary Reference Values for the EU · checked 2026-09-02

This page is general nutrition information. It is not dietary advice, it is not an allergen check, and it cannot tell you whether a specific product is safe for you. Coeliac disease, food allergy, kidney disease and pregnancy all change what a food list means — those belong with a clinician or a registered dietitian.

Frequently asked questions

Other views of the same database

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