For many, Mediterranean cuisine may seem like a simple, unified concept—fresh ingredients, yogurt with spices, and dishes served family-style. But as Persian author Andrew Fiouzi points out, the reality is much more complex when discussing the Middle Eastern cuisine’s relabeling as “Mediterranean food”. He reassures his audience they are not entirely wrong for using “Mediterranean,” a term coined in late 1940s American restaurant culture to make immigrant cuisines more approachable to American consumers. Many restaurant owners adopted the Mediterranean label for their own safety, attempting to avoid political connotations to ongoing issues in the Middle East and attract more consumers. However, the label itself is not free from skepticism. 

Andrew Silverstein from The Forward notes food consumption is inherently political: in recent years, Israeli chefs have won international acclaim for cooking and remarketing indigenous Levant cuisine as “Eastern Mediterranean” instead of “Middle Eastern” or “Palestinian,” sparking accusations of cultural erasure and culinary colonization. 

While the Mediterranean Diet (MedDiet) is widely accepted as a gold standard diet by the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Health, nutritional researcher Dr. Kate G. Burt reports its origins in scientific racism and biased research. American physiologist Ancel Keys’ 1950s Seven Countries study linked dietary patterns of different cultures (U.S., Italy, Yugoslavia, Greece, Japan, Finland, and the Netherlands) to cardiovascular disease. His study showed a correlation between Greek and Italian subjects’ lower fat consumption and lower heart disease rates, unfairly omitting North African and Middle Eastern (MENA) countries with similar dietary habits and even lower per capita meat consumption. Keys’ decision to focus on white Mediterranean nations has played a pivotal role in shaping the global view of the MedDiet. His research, combined with later public health campaigns, elevated Greek and Italian diets as the 'gold standard' for cardiovascular health. Through limiting MENA representation, this often whitewashed understanding of Mediterranean cuisine still influences nutritional advice. Today, the Mediterranean Diet Foundation’s International Scientific Committee lacks members from most MENA countries, except Morocco. 

In light of the predominantly white leadership and representation in nutritional research, it is crucial to study non-white heritage diets in order to create more equitable nutritional systems.

Contemporary research on Latin American, African, and Asian heritage diets reveals exciting potential to diversify nutritional planning for healthy eating. In 2022, Dr. Kelly E. LeBlanc conducted a holistic investigation of PubMed studies on these three areas of the world, highlighting dietary research on Puerto Rican, Ghanaian, Okinawan, and other populations. She provided nuanced findings on the correlations between their cultures’ ingredients and foods versus their health outcomes such as BMI, blood lipid patterns, susceptibility to diseases like breast cancer, and more. 

Culturally inclusive research requires not only self-reflection from American researchers but also collaboration beyond the domestic sphere: researchers from Peking Union Medical College recently advocated for cross-cultural communication between the East and the West to further improve food-medicine research, suggesting the creation of an international platform for cross-cultural academia and support from international organizations (i.e. China-ASEAN Traditional Medicine International Cooperation Joint Laboratory). While much of this conversation seems centered on academia, there are also powerful ways everyday people can participate in cultural appreciation. One prime example would include the recent influx of American TikTok users joining the Chinese app Xiaohongshu after TikTok went offline in the U.S. 

Liyan Qi from MSN writes about Texan mother Zaire Perry and Chinese netizen Hu Xiaoman’s online friendship initiated by Perry’s interest in jidan geng (steamed egg custard). Both women initially knew little about each other’s cultural cuisines but still bonded over food. As Perry states, “Food is something that can transcend language, cultural barriers. I don’t even speak Chinese and she speaks very little English, and yet we’re bonding over recipes.”

While food can be inherently political, and academic narratives often reflect bias, heritage cuisines hold the power to nourish and unite when we prioritize listening to others' stories over dominating with our own.