Had an interesting stroll through the main Palermo market today. Spotted several vegetables I didn't know, watched octopus being steamed in large vats, also boiled potates being sold hot and trays of ready roasted (but cold) onions and aubergines . Every street corner has fresh orange or lemon juice being squeezed and sold neat or with ice and sugar as a granita
It's been lovely to be somewhere where food isn't seen as bad and indeed is thoroughly enjoyed.
Spent most of the last 2 weeks mulling over the "Mediterranean diet" we keep being told to adopt and how it might fit with low carb/intermittent fasting/tre Breakfast is either none (or just coffee) or pastries or bread, lunch pasta or salad, dinner pasta or another starter followed by fish (only sometimes meat). Vegetables seemed to be served as a dish in their own right, often as starter.
It's the timings that are so different to what I find suits me in the UK. Breakfast is early, by 8, lunch late at 2 and dinner doesn't start until 8 and goes on until 10p.m.
Imho it would be difficult to shorten the "eating window" as the evening meal is the social/family one but I find I was often going to bed hungry and needed breakfast. To skip breakfast regularly I think I'd be hungry as the only way to fill up is with pasta. The fish and meat meals are small portions.
So maybe intermittent fasting would be the best way to cope if here for longer ie eating say 1 day then not all the next, but the eating day would have to have carbs (pasta or rice or bread) as there aren't the opportunities to increase protein much.
I have been indulging in carbs a bit and mainly trying to cope by having eggs, cheese and meat at breakfast, salad at lunch and just a main in the evening. Of course there has been gelati (ice cream) wine and other drinks. This is a holiday!
. My libre tells me I've been 96% in range, my average is 6.5 mmol/L. I did peak at 11.5 after a fresh orange juice (2 and a half oranges) followed less than an hour later by an Aperol spritz ( a rise on top of a rise! Knew I should have had wine instead of the cocktail). My longest peak was after bread (lasted 3 hours) . And yes the 3 days I did have a small pastry at breakfast did result in rises. Whoever invented croissants filled with sweet pistachio cream should be shot
Although this post is about food and bg I would highly recommend Sicily, it has so much to offer. We've done history, geography, botany, volcanoes, swam, got warm, got wet once, people watched and eaten well. Do visit if you can.
