In Pamplona, Spain, a group of scientists has been researching the connection between our health and the food we eat since the 1980s. Led by Dr. Miguel Ángel Martínez-González and Dr. Miguel Ruiz Canela, they argue that young people in Spain have adopted a Western diet and abandoned the food traditions of their grandparents. We discover the results of the ground-breaking Predimed study, focusing on the beneficial role of olive oil. To understand how its nutrients affect our body, we travel to Cyprus to discover the work of pharmacologist Prokopios Mayiatis at an olive grove in the ‘Dead Zone’ that has divided Cyprus since the Turkish invasion in 1974. The absence of human activity or the use of pesticides helped to produce one of the healthiest olive oils in the world. From Cyprus, we travel to the Aegean Sea in Greece, where a group of researchers are enriching the food of sea bream with olive oil to help prevent heart disease.

Series Description

Food has a great influence on our well being and our body. Everybody knows that the Mediterranean Diet, consisting of plant based foods like vegetables, grains, nuts, legumes and fruits, with few or no animal products - is good for our health. Only few of us know, however, how particular plants affect different parts of our body, our heart and mind or how the food we eat can act as medicine, if used correctly. The Perfect Meal series follows five leading international scientists who gradually uncover the secret mechanisms of the Mediterranean Diet and reveal how certain ingredients and combinations of plant based foods can protect us from obesity, cardiovascular diseases, cancers and brain- ageing.