Diet habits, scored
Mediterranean diet score (MEDAS)
The 14-item Mediterranean Diet Adherence Screener (MEDAS) was used in the PREDIMED study in Spain to check quickly how closely a person eats in a Mediterranean way. Each habit that fits scores 1 point, for a total from 0 to 14. It scores eating habits; it does not estimate your risk of any disease.
Your usual eating habits
Answer for a typical day or week. 14 questions, 1 point each. Nothing you enter leaves this page.
On question 8: the screener gives a point for wine because it was built around traditional Spanish eating habits. If you do not drink, answer "Fewer than 7, or none". This page does not suggest starting to drink.
What you will see
Your MEDAS score out of 14, which research group of the PREDIMED analysis it falls in, and the items that did not score a point.
Educational only, not medical advice. A diet habit score, not a risk estimate or a diagnosis.
Source
Schröder H et al., Journal of Nutrition 2011 (validation of the 14-item MEDAS). The 14 items and the criterion for each point are as printed in Table 1 of Martínez-González MA et al., PLoS One 2012, an open-access PREDIMED paper.
Validated in
PREDIMED: 7,447 Spanish adults (women 60 to 80, men 55 to 80) without heart disease but at high heart risk because of type 2 diabetes or at least 3 major risk factors. The validation study compared the screener with a full 137-item food questionnaire in 7,146 of them.
Limits
Scores how closely your habits match one Mediterranean pattern; it gives no chance of any disease. Built and checked in older Spanish adults at high heart risk, interviewed by trained dietitians, so answering it yourself, at another age or in another food culture may give different results. Serving sizes are approximate. There is no official pass mark.
What the score is
The MEDAS is a short questionnaire used in the PREDIMED trial, a Spanish study of Mediterranean diets for preventing heart disease. In the trial, dietitians asked the 14 questions in a face-to-face interview (Martínez-González 2012). The tool was first developed in a Spanish study of heart attacks, where the cut-off for each food was chosen as the one that best separated people who had a heart attack from people who did not (Martínez-González 2012).
In the validation study of 7,146 PREDIMED participants, the screener score correlated with the score from a full food frequency questionnaire (r = 0.52) (Schröder 2011). A higher score went with higher HDL cholesterol and with lower BMI, waist size, triglycerides and fasting glucose (Schröder 2011). The authors called it a valid tool for a quick estimate of Mediterranean diet adherence that may be useful in clinical practice (Schröder 2011).
The 14 questions
| # | Question | 1 point if |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Do you use olive oil as your main cooking fat? | Yes |
| 2 | How much olive oil do you use in a day (including for frying, salads and meals out)? | 4 tablespoons or more |
| 3 | How many servings of vegetables do you eat a day? (1 serving is 200 g; count side dishes as half a serving) | 2 or more, at least 1 of them raw or as a salad |
| 4 | How many pieces of fruit (including natural fruit juice) do you have a day? | 3 or more |
| 5 | How many servings of red meat, hamburger or meat products (ham, sausage and so on) do you eat a day? (1 serving is 100 to 150 g) | Less than 1 |
| 6 | How many servings of butter, margarine or cream do you have a day? (1 serving is 12 g) | Less than 1 |
| 7 | How many sweet or carbonated drinks do you have a day? | Less than 1 |
| 8 | How much wine do you drink a week? | 7 glasses or more |
| 9 | How many servings of legumes (beans, lentils, chickpeas) do you eat a week? (1 serving is 150 g) | 3 or more |
| 10 | How many servings of fish or shellfish do you eat a week? (1 serving is 100 to 150 g of fish, or 4 to 5 pieces or 200 g of shellfish) | 3 or more |
| 11 | How many times a week do you have shop-bought sweets or pastries (not homemade), such as cakes, cookies, biscuits or custard? | Less than 3 |
| 12 | How many servings of nuts (including peanuts) do you eat a week? (1 serving is 30 g) | 3 or more |
| 13 | Do you choose chicken, turkey or rabbit more often than veal, pork, hamburger or sausage? | Yes |
| 14 | How many times a week do you eat vegetables, pasta, rice or other dishes with sofrito (a sauce of tomato and onion, leek or garlic, simmered in olive oil)? | 2 or more |
Items and criteria as printed in Table 1 of Martínez-González 2012 (Martínez-González 2012), in our own plain wording. Total score: 0 to 14, one point per item met (Martínez-González 2012).
What higher scores went with in PREDIMED
The 2012 PREDIMED paper grouped scores as 7 or less, 8 to 9, and 10 or more (Martínez-González 2012). These were groups for the analysis, not a pass mark. People with higher scores had a lower average BMI, waist size and waist-to-height ratio, and lower odds of abdominal obesity (waist-to-height ratio of 0.6 or more) (Martínez-González 2012). For each 2 more points, waist size was a little under 1 cm smaller on average (Martínez-González 2012).
The authors note the main limitation: the data were collected at one point in time, so they cannot show that the diet caused the difference, and the differences were small (Martínez-González 2012).
How it relates to Life's Essential 8
The AHA Life's Essential 8 score also has a diet part, but it uses a different questionnaire, the 16-point MEPA, with its own scoring (Lloyd-Jones 2022 (AHA)). A MEDAS score cannot be entered into Life's Essential 8 as a MEPA score.
What to do with your result
The items you did not score show which habits differ most from the Mediterranean pattern the screener describes. If you have high blood pressure, high cholesterol or other heart risk factors, see the diet and exercise counseling check for who the USPSTF says should be offered help with diet. See also the heart risk calculator, the waist-to-height ratio, the BMI calculator and, for drinking habits, alcohol screening (AUDIT-C).
Sources
- Schröder H, Fitó M, Estruch R, et al. A short screener is valid for assessing Mediterranean diet adherence among older Spanish men and women. J Nutr. 2011;141(6):1140-1145. doi:10.3945/jn.110.135566. PMID 21508208. (Validation of the 14-item MEDAS; we read the abstract.) pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21508208/
- Martínez-González MA, García-Arellano A, Toledo E, et al. A 14-item Mediterranean diet assessment tool and obesity indexes among high-risk subjects: the PREDIMED trial. PLoS One. 2012;7(8):e43134. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0043134. PMC3419206. (Prints the 14 items and the criterion for each point in Table 1.) pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3419206/
- Lloyd-Jones DM, Allen NB, Anderson CAM, Black T, Brewer LC, Foraker RE, et al. Life's Essential 8: Updating and Enhancing the American Heart Association's Construct of Cardiovascular Health: A Presidential Advisory From the American Heart Association. Circulation. 2022;146(5):e18-e43. doi:10.1161/CIR.0000000000001078. PMID 35766027. (We read the points in Table 1 and its notes in the NIH author manuscript, PMC10503546.) pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10503546/
Written and maintained by the uncovermyrisk.com editorial team. We do not have a medical reviewer; every claim links to its primary source above. Last reviewed: 2026-11-01. Spotted an error? See About.