The Nordic Diet may be history to our progeny as will much of the Mediterranean peoples homelands!

An article in the Telegraph compares the traditional Nordic Diet to be as good or better than the Mediterranean Diet! This is good for us Today, climate change will mean Southern Europe will be arid with desert encroaching on homelands and the traditional Nordic Diet might just lack the Riendeer and so much more.....Yet, the change in the Gulf Stream may make it colder and more relevant to what is left of Britain.

So lets ponder the diversity and difference in two of the Worlds healthiest diets, whilst considering that it will be Global Warming that will be the decisive factor in if Northern Europe will be eating a Nordic or Mediterranean diet - when Europe gets hotter, homelands become lost and the World sinks towards unimaginable anarchy...

Research by Elling Bere from the University of Agder, Norway, has shown that native berries from northern Europe such as blueberries, cowberries and cloudberries contain as much unsaturated omega-3 fatty acids as fish per unit Scientists at the University of Copenhagen, in Denmark, have set up a EURO 13.3 million (£12.2 million) project aimed at identifying and testing more products from the region that can fit into the "New Nordic Diet". They also plan to carry out trials with schoolchildren to see how the diet can help improve their health.

Professor Arne Astrup, president of the International Association for the Study of Obesity and head of the department of human nutrition at Copenhagen University, is leading the project.

He said: "The plan is to develop a counterpart to the Mediterranean diet that is superior in terms of health effects and palatability."

In Finland, around 23 per cent of people are obese; in Sweden, the figure is as low as 10 per cent; but in the UK, the number is around 25 per cent.

They also found that they were rich in antioxidants, which are known to reduce the levels of harmful molecules in cells that can build up over time and cause damage, leading to diseases such as heart disease, stroke and cancer.

Rapeseed oil has been found to be a good alternative to olive oil, containing more omega-3 fatty acids and being a good source of vitamin E. Cabbage and other brassica species such a kale and Brussels sprouts, which tend to thrive in cold-weather conditions, have been found by scientists at the University of Oslo to contain some of the highest levels of antioxidants of any vegetable and are a good source of vitamin K, which plays a role in blood coagulation. I highly recommend Hillfarm extra virgin cold pressed rapeseed oil from Sussex and Sainsburys!

Traditional Nordic diets have also been high in fish, as in the Mediterranean, with particular preference for salmon, trout, cod and herring - cold water fishes that will decline too in warmer fisheries.

Prof Astrup also believes that game meat from animals such as elk and reindeer, and birds such as grouse, should also form a greater part of people's diets as these meats tends to be leaner than farm-reared livestock - rabbit too!

Dr Joan Ransley, a lecturer in nutritional Epidemiology at Leeds University, said: "In northern climates it is difficult to adopt Mediterranean diet simply because the ingredients like peppers and tomatoes don't grow in colder climates and the growing season is so much shorter - Your ignoring the future and climate change, will these even leave us any choice in foods Dr. Ransley?

"If they can present these traditional foods in an attractive way it could be great."

Trina Hahnemann, a Danish chef who recently published The Scandinavian Cookbook, added that in many parts of Scandinavia and Britain, traditional diets had been abandoned in favour of foods from Italy and Spain.

She said: "I think that people have lost their food culture and forgotten about how foods suited to northern climates can be healthy. In Britain you have a lot of kale, but almost no one realises that you can eat it raw like lettuce and it is very nutritious."

The popularity of the Mediterranean diet stems from data showing that people living in countries bordering the Mediterranean have lower levels of cardiovascular disease, obesity and certain types of cancer.

Regional eating habits include consuming large amounts of vegetables, nuts, bread and fish, which make the Mediterranean diet very low in saturated fats, which typically come from meat.

The Mediterranean diet – one of the leading eating plans for the past 20 years – is facing competition from the "Nordic diet", which, scientists are finding, could be significantly healthier.

The findings have generated excitement among many nutrition experts in the United Kingdom as the British climate is more suited to producing the kinds of foods found in Scandinavia than it is to growing the sun-ripened foods of the Mediterranean.

Nutritionists in the UK have, consequently, pushed the vegetable and olive oil-rich diet as a way of combating Britain's appalling public health record, and in Scotland the Government funded intensive research into the effectiveness of the diet - If you allow nutritionally impoverished processed foods made to taste acceptable with additives, flavours, simple sugars and salt this grossly expensive health problem is bound to happen? Should we call these industrial products foods or poisons?