Left: A much-decorated chef from Greece prepares food Wednesday evening in the foyer of the Rayburn House Office Building. Right: Chefs from Kapnos, a new Greek restaurant at 14th and W streets in Washington, at the event sponsored by the Greek Embassy, Rep. Joseph Crowley, D-N.Y., and the co-chairs of the Hellenic Caucus, Reps. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla. and Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y. (Jerry Hagstrom/The Hagstrom Report)

Quoting Hippocrates, who said, “Let food be thy medicine,” Greek chefs and members of Congress on Wednesday promoted the Greek Mediterranean diet as the place “where flavor meets good health.”

“The critical ingredients of the Greek diet include olive oil – dubbed the ‘natural salad dressing‘ — and a fundamental staple of the Greek diet: whole grains, vegetables, fruits, dairy products (principally cheese and yogurt), seafood and more white meat than red,” Greek Ambassador to the United States Christos Panagopoulos, said in a news release.

Celebrity chef Cat Cora, a participant in Michele Obama’s “Let's Move!” initiative and “Chefs Move to Schools,” a program that advises parents to make nutrition education a priority at home, noted that she had grown up eating the diet up in a Greek family in Jackson, Miss.

“It’s crucial for good health and longevity to instill in children sound eating habits from an early age,” Cora said.

“The traditional nutritional habits of Greece, as exemplified by the diet on the island of Crete, restore our body’s essential nutritional ‘good fats’ and influence every aspect of our being, from the beating of our hearts to our ability to learn to remember,” said Artemis Simopoulos, former chair of the National Institutes of Health’s Nutrition Coordinating Committee and author of “The Omega Diet.”

The Greek diet has been inscribed on UNESCO’s representative list of the “Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.”