100% Thomas. Tagging the entire Mediterranean region with a single diet is stereotyping and the most extreme simplification. There are hundreds of different cultures, religions, etc, that all have their own local foods and ways of eating. As you say, Keys and his cronies failed to take into account the regions fasting compliance but also the post war rationing of nutrient dense foods, aka animal products.

Society has been brainwashed with the stereotype that the Mediterranean people all sit down together for servings of tomatoes, basil, and olive oil with a little homemade sough dough bread and fish pulled from the sea by their super fit grandad with a tan like seasoned oak and deep groves in his forehead.

The invention of the so-called Mediterranean diet serves to blame saturated fat, an ancient food for humans, for the diseases of modernity. Oh if only they hadn't ignored the RCTs of Mary Enig and her warnings about modern trans fats and oxidised vegetable oils—soybean, corn, canola, etc.

If we can learn anything from this made-up diet it's this; just eat real food, stop snacking.