The Mediterranean diet holds an eight-year streak of being the healthiest diet per doctors and dietitians.
Along with similar diets like DASH, it’s rich in whole, plant-based foods like legumes and veggies.
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The Mediterranean diet has been named the healthiest way to eat for the eighth year in a row.
Based on traditions in countries like Italy, Greece, and Turkey, the eating style swept the top spot in 12 categories (out of 21 total) for healthy eating in 2025, including Best Diet Overall, according to annual rankings from US News & World Report.
The Mediterranean diet earned a 4.8 rating out of 5 in the rankings.
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It’s rich in foods like whole grains, legumes, and leafy greens with fewer processed foods and refined sugars and a flexible approach to eating.
Rounding out the top four, the DASH diet, flexitarian diet, and MIND diet offer a similarly relaxed approach to eating nutrient-dense whole foods.
They also align with simple, affordable ways to eat for a longer life, research suggests.
While it’s not news that eating more veggies is good for us, the new insights offer a road map on using the latest research to find the diet that might work best for you — and how to avoid pitfalls in the diet industry, even as popular meds like Ozempic have shaken up how we think about eating and weight loss.
Healthy diets that are easy to follow
The top diets for healthy eating focus on whole, unprocessed foods, typically plenty of plant-based foods like fruits, vegetables, and grains, along with some seafood and lean proteins. They also don’t follow a strict meal plan or rules, offering a lot of options and flexibility, although they discourage generally ultra-processed foods with a lot of added sugar, salt, and fat.
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These were the top picks from the experts, listed in order from highest-rated to fourth place overall:
The Mediterranean diet is known for flavorful dishes full of herbs and olive oil, along with whole grains like farro, lots of legumes like chickpeas and beans, and fatty fish such as salmon and sardines. It’s similar to eating habits in Blue Zones where people live longer, healthier lives on average.
The DASH diet is short for “dietary approaches to stop hypertension” and ranked number one for heart health. It’s designed to reduce blood pressure and lower heart disease risk through eating more produce, whole grains, and lean proteins, and less saturated fat, salt, sugar, and alcohol without cutting out foods completely.
The Flexitarian diet is mostly plant-based with room for some lean meats, low-fat dairy, and eggs in moderation. It aims to make whole foods like veggies, grains, beans, nuts, and seeds the main focus of meals and snacks.
The MIND diet was developed with the help of Harvard researchers to incorporate elements of Mediterranean and DASH eating specifically for brain health. It focuses on incorporating more servings of berries, nuts, and whole grains to your diet while cutting back on red meat, fried food, and sweets.
Diets to avoid
While there was no single worst diet across all categories, short-term or quick-fix plans ranked lower along with more restrictive eating plans that eliminate many food options, as did plans with big claims not backed by strong scientificevidence.
Diets that ranked low on the list were:
The Body Reset diet is a 15-day plan from a celebrity trainer. It includes three phases, a lot of smoothies, and major calorie restriction.
The Autoimmune Protocol diet is an elimination plan that involves avoiding foods that might cause irritation. However, it can be tough to follow because of the long list of foods to restrict, which includes cutting out tomatoes, beans, potatoes, grains, nuts, seeds, dairy, eggs, and caffeine.
The SlimFast diet is a weight loss program based on meal-replacement shakes and bars, which can be expensive, restrictive, and difficult to maintain.
The Optavia diet is a low-carbohydrate weight loss program based on pre-packaged foods, which may be helpful short-term but can be hard to follow over time since it relies on specific products and cuts out many foods.
How to find the best diet for you
To compile the rankings, a panel of medical doctors, registered dietitians, and researchers evaluated 38 diets on factors like sustainability, nutritional completeness, and potential health benefits and risks.
This year’s report rated each diet from 0 (worst) to 5 (best) across a range of categories, from overall best diet to best diets for gut health or mental health, and for managing specific conditions such as menopause, inflammation, high cholesterol, and IBS.
A key point is that none of the diets achieved a perfect score — not even the Mediterranean diet.
That’s because personal details play a huge role in how well a diet can work.
“There’s no one-size-fits-all,” she said. “You have to consider lifestyle and preferences.”
Factors to consider include:
which grocery staples you can reliably access on your budget
how much time you have to cook
which cooking skills you can realistically use on a regular basis
foods that you and your family enjoy eating
“At the end of the day, it’s about ‘can I do this in the long term.”
