The Mediterranean diet is a lie:

Orthodoxy holds that the American duo discovered [in Italy] a fantastically nourishing, mostly plant-based regimen centered on moderation and communal eating, as well as a food pyramid much like the one we all saw as children … [but] The diet wasn’t discovered so much as invented — and Nicoterans’ leanness was due to a different ingredient: hunger.

And Italy sure isn’t doing so hot now. Check out the graphs.