This is a great "let's get real" article.

It addresses the 9 point scoring system created by the promoters of the mediterranean diet.

First of all, all the factors for health and the success of a particular diet cannot be summarized into 9 points. Next, these nine factors have to do with diet and exercise as if these are the only fundamentals of successful living, they are not. Third, read this article...

Here are a few of the article highlights:

• First of all, it concerns itself only with quantities of specific things, not quality. So nutrient-poor industrialized, toxin-compromised foods are given the same score as organic and nutrient-rich foods free from toxins.
• Second, Mediterranean Diet research assumes that only diet, or only diet and exercise are factors in the superior health and longer lifespans of Mediterranean people, but as other research is showing, sunshine is another factor. This is a problem because Mediterranean diet research does not include advice to get more sun.
• Third, with the exception of alcohol and saturated fats, the Mediterranean Diet Scale doesn't concern itself with consumption or over consumption of unhealthy foods. So it's possible to get a perfect 9 on the Mediterranean diet scale, and still consume huge amounts of cotton candy and Red Bull and every day.
• Fourth, subjects get an alcohol point for consuming from one to three glasses of alcohol for men and slightly less for women. That means drinking zero alcohol -- the healthiest option, assuming the rest of your diet is healthy -- is treated the same as drinking a bottle of scotch every day. The upper end of this scale -- three glasses per day -- is enough to develop chronic alcoholism.