And I’ve always loved fast food.

In the early ’70s, any visit to a large city necessarily included a stop at McDonald’s. And when the day arrived in 1972 when one opened in Great Bend, it was bigger than a contemporary IKEA arrival. Even then, we were infrequent visitors in part because it was packed all day, every day. Plus mom hated fast food and loathed the notion of spending money when she was serving chipped beef on toast with mixed vegetables. But the dam broke in 1975 when McDonald’s rolled out a contest that remains unprecedented even by today’s marketing standards. If you could sing all the ingredients to the Big Mac, in order, in less than three seconds, you got one free. A laughable proposition today — some brat would lose in a disputed finish and his dad would file a class action.

But this was the ’70s. In that decade Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were planting the seeds to change the world. I had more practical goals: a free Big Mac. I remember very distinctly the day we happened to corner the manager and give it our best shot. Kid brother Marty crushed it. I transposed the special sauce and lettuce and got pure humiliation. Recently I read that more people today can name those ingredients than can recite the Ten Commandments.

So my partiality to fast food has continued. When our boys were toddlers, on Saturdays I would take them to the fast food trifecta on Metcalf and 119th Street — where Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC are all in one place. There I would eat three of the four food groups: a Burrito Supreme, a four-piece original recipe meal (extra biscuits) and a mini pizza. Other beloved hangouts — Captain D’s in Mission, especially during Lent, Don Chilitos, and my favorite, the White Castle on Metcalf, where an aroma of grilled onions still wafts in the adjacent airspace. One time at the Big 8 tournament in Kemper, I ate a funnel cake chased with a supersized Dr. Pepper. I didn’t know BMI from BMA. I was skin and bones.

And then I hit 50 and my metabolism vanished. Someone shot me full of air. The CVS robot kept calling me. I needed new belts. Probiotics, active cultures and anything else Jamie Lee Curtis was selling took on relevance. Lori started pushing blueberries, blackberries, brain foods, super foods, natural foods. When channel surfing sometimes I would watch infomercials for food blenders and colon cleansers. Tomatoes got into the act.

I rallied. I had regular checkups at the blood pressure machine at Wal-Mart, while staring at the stacks of Depends. Dermatology found its place — with Lori checking my discolored freckles: “Get that looked at. Plus that one. Call my doctor.”

And the news last week about the Mediterranean diet made my day, week, year. It would be cliché to call it a game changer so I won’t. But it was. It dominated the media and happily pushed sinkholes off the front page. It also flabbergasted the pointy headed organic food know-it-alls. Greek yogurt has been jamming our fridge for years now. But Greek food? Best known to me by Tasso’s and its acclaimed drink Ouzo.

Central to the diet is wine. The study encourages seven glasses of wine a week. A continuation of now compelling evidence of the health benefits of wine, this gave me the ammunition I need on a nightly basis. Merlot, Pinot, Burgundy, Cabernet, all to ward off strokes, heart disease and help lead a happy, healthy life. Goodbye, Jared. Hello, Robert Mondavi.