A buy-to-let is for profit... and fun. How? By enjoying the healthy food, drinking the excellent wine, going outdoors into the countryside, taking part in some sporting activities, joining social activities and learning about the culture and customs of the country.

Enjoying The Food

Although the Mediterranean diet is healthy, the hour it is eaten is not. The Spanish are famous for eating at a time which to some is ludicrously late in the day. Who in most countries would think of sitting down to a full meal at nine or ten o’clock in the evening? This late night eating is all to do with the Spanish siesta-adjusted body clock with most people not finishing work until half past seven or eight o’clock.

Restaurant meals usually consist of three courses. The choices for Menu del Dia are chalked up on a blackboard outside the restaurant. Many restaurants in Spain (including, strangely, Chinese) offer a Menu del Dia. It must consist of three courses plus bread and water or wine. The third course is always dessert. The price is always less than if you were to order the same items a la carte. It is one of the best deals in Spain. There may be only two or three choices per course or as many as a dozen.

With a bottle of table wine and food at prices that do not compare with those paid for a meal in northern Europe, eating out can cost next to nothing. It is a constant source of amazement that restaurants can produce a three course meal with wine for as little as 10 Euros. A service charge is included in some restaurant and hotel bills, but waiters appreciate an addition 5–10% tip.

But beware! Among the basic intake of food and drink should be included tobacco. Men smoke, women smoke and teenagers smoke. Wherever you go you will soon be enveloped in a thick blue haze of cigarette smoke and many Spaniards seem not to have the faintest idea that this could be uncomfortable to anyone.

In addition to restaurants, there are many attractive tapas bars offering freshly made snacks and appetisers. The tapas bar is unique to Spain. Alicante is known as one of the best tapas areas where the ritual of tapas eating has reached sublime levels.

Tapas come in all sorts of delicious forms and are readily available in most bars. Rows of dishes are arranged in a chilled cabinet in front of the customer. They comprise tortilla, spicy meat balls, big plump olives, sausages, fried aubergines, egg salad, courgettes, spicy potatoes, liver, cheese, Serrano ham, sardines, prawns in garlic, anchovies, mussels, calamares (fried squid), sepia (cuttlefish) and small fish in olive oil.

Nibbling at small amounts of food is popular, but of equal importance is that the tapas bar is an essential part of life, a place where people meet to eat and drink, to gossip, to carry out business and generally pass the time of day.

The Mediterranean Diet

When the death rates from coronary heart disease in different countries are compared to the levels of fat intake, there is a strong tendency for the rates to be highest in the countries where people eat the most fat. At the head of the list are the Finns, who eat a lot of meat and cheese, and at the bottom are the Japanese, who eat very little. Americans come near the top, but the most striking deviation from this trend are the French, who have the same fat intake as Americans, but only one quarter the death rate from heart disease.

The Greeks too break all the rules, and yet their risk of heart disease is low. The life expectancy of a 45-year-old Greek man is about two years longer than for an Englishman or American of the same age. Greek men smoke heavily, drink alcohol regularly, rarely indulge in recreational exercise, and eat a high-salt, high-fat diet.

What is the answer to this paradox? The only rational explanation is the nature of the diet. The critical factor appears to be not how much fat is eaten, but what sort. What distinguishes the diets of Spaniards and other Mediterranean peoples is that they get their fat as monounsaturated fat because their cuisine is based on olive oil.

Other features of the Mediterranean diet are a high intake of fruits and vegetables, and relatively low meat consumption. Complex carbohydrates are a major component, in the form of wholegrain breads, grains and cereals. The lesson to be learned is that you do not have to go on a low-fat diet to cut your risk of heart disease; what you need to do is make sure that the fat you eat is mostly monounsaturated

The basis of the traditional Mediterranean diet is a three level pyramid where the foods at the top should be consumed less frequently than the ones at the bottom (see Figure 13).

The sole occupant of the apex of the pyramid is red meat. A lot of evidence now suggests that a high meat intake is associated not only with heart disease but also with colon and prostate cancers. Furthermore, all the nutrients found in meat can be obtained from other sources.

In the middle are sweets. Desserts (other than fruit) are not a part of the Mediterranean diet. Next are eggs, which are restricted because of their cholesterol content. Poultry, which is a preferable source of protein to red meat, follows, but it is not as good as fish, which comes at the bottom of this group, and should be eaten several times per week.

At the bottom of the pyramid come dairy products (principally cheese and yogurt), which can be taken daily, but in small amounts. This does not mean drinking a lot of whole milk (drinking milk is not a feature of the Mediterranean diet), and low-fat cheeses may be preferable. Next comes olive oil, which is used instead of butter, margarine, and other cooking oils. Followed by fruits, beans, nuts (good sources of protein) and vegetables. Finally there are breads, pasta, rice, other grains and potatoes.