The modified Mediterranean Diet is the best anti-inflammatory diet in the world. Quite literally, this modified Mediterranean Diet can usually effectively treat, cure, control, or manage specific illnesses and major diseases.

Level #1: Fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans, and other legumes. Salads consists of dark green leafy lettuce, fresh vine-ripened tomatoes, broccoli, spinach, peppers, onions, and cucumbers. Serve vegetables in salads, as appetizers, or as a main or side dish. Fruits are usually a dessert or snack. Use nuts as toppings to add favor and texture. The beans and legumes are usually in soups, added to salads, used as dips (i.e., hummus), or as a main dish.

Level #2: Steel-cut oats and quinoa, millet or millet bread, brown rice, and sweet potatoes. if you are not gluten sensitive, trying to lose weight, or suffering from high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, or another inflammatory disease, then potatoes, sprouted bread (i.e., Ezekiel 4:9 bread), or fermented bread (i.e., sourdough bread) are fine on occasion, rotated every four days,  and with moderation (the size of a tennis ball for women and 1-2 tennis balls for men).

Level #3: Olive oil, used instead of other oils, including butter, margarine, etc. Not only for cooking, it is commonly mixed with balsamic vinegar as a salad dressing.

Level #4: Cheese and yogurt, in small amounts. Freshly grated Parmesan on pasta or a little feta cheese on a salad is common. Yogurt (about a cup a day) is how milk is usually eaten, and it is low fat or nonfat, served with fresh fruit added. Yogurt may also be used as a salad dressing (i.e., mixed with dill, garlic, onion, and cucumbers). Many patients are sensitive to diary and thus may need to minimize, avoid, or rotate it every four days.

Level #5: Fish, eaten more than other meats, in about 4 to 6-ounce portions several times a week. Choose low-mercury fish. Like anchovies, butterfish, catfish, clams, crab (domestic), crawfish/crayfish, croaker (Atlantic), flounder, haddock, (Atlantic), hake, herring, mackerel (N.Atlantic, chub), mullet, oyster, perch (ocean), plaice, pullock, salmon (canned or fresh), sardine, scallop, shad (American), shrimp, sole (Pacific), squid (calamari), tilapia, trout (freshwater), whitefish, and whiting.

Level #6: Chicken, turkey, and eggs. Chicken in 3-6-ounce portions a few times a week is common. The meat is usually skinless and added to soups, stews, and other dishes loaded with vegetables. Only 2-6 eggs per week. I recommend 1 yolk/3 whites as egg ratio.

Level #7: Red meat, in the form of beef, veal, pork, sheep, lamb, and goat is eaten in 3-6 ounce portions once or twice a week or just a few times in a month. It is then often served as a topping to a  vegetable, pasta, or rice dish.