Mediterranean Diet

What Is the Mediterranean Diet

The Mediterranean Diet is a nutritional model which is considered of such international cultural importance that UNESCO, the Educational and Scientific Organisation of the United Nations, has declared it in 2013 an “Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity”. (For sources, see the references at the end of this article.)

UNESCO describes the Mediterranean Diet as involving a set of skills, knowledge and traditions about crops, harvesting, conservation, processing, cooking, and particularly the sharing of food.

Well known are the health benefits of the Mediterranean Diet, whose “food pyramid” greatly overlaps with the advice of medical authorities and government health bodies.

Eating together is fundamental to the Mediterranean culture of food, is an important moment of social life and communication, an affirmation of family or community identity, it’s central to festivals, events and celebrations. It emphasises values of hospitality and neighbourliness.

Craftsmanship and techniques for the production, preservation and consumption of food include ceramic plates and glasses. respect for seasonal rhythms, markets. All this is transmitted to each new generation, and so the tradition continues.

This ideal picture has partly been eroded in Italy in recent decades, but, whereas in other countries the tradition of family meals has received massive attacks, in Italy it still resists more strongly than elsewhere in the Western world.

References:

UNESCO on Mediterranean Diet