2009 BROCHURE ENGLISH

THE MEDITERRANEAN DIET TODAY

A MODEL OF SUSTAINABLE DIET

We are placed in an interdependent living planet,

where one billion people are undernourished worldwide.

This conference is made by a group of scientists and friends, with open minds,

going to discuss creatively and go forward, with consensus, to highlight the overall sustainable benefits of the Mediterranean diet to be shared with all people living in the Mediterranean area.

Its purpose is to reduce the rapid erosion of their “lifestyle and food habits”.

The Mediterranean diet is acknowledged as an intangible cultural heritage  

to be safeguarded and enhanced within the today globalization process.

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Within the 2015 Millennium Development Goals, towards the Milan-Expo, the CIISCAM conference wishes to be a contribution to advancement of the goals' achievement of nutrition security for all, by promoting in the entire Mediterranean area, the Mediterranean diet and its high biodiversity and nutritional well being values.

The 2009 CIISCAM international conference in Parma is the continuation of the debate started in 2002, in Calabria, with the 1° Euro-Mediterranean Forum on Food Cultures, and relaunched, in 2005, with The Rome Call for a Common Action on “Food” in the Mediterranean, issued at the Sapienza University of Rome.

The Mediterranean diet, understood as a lifestyle in continue evolution through time,  is a complex system of shared knowledge related to food and people, a result of a particular environmental historical  multifaceted geographic region.

In the Mediterranean there is a spread awareness of the social, cultural, health and economic dimension of ‘food’, shared by all Mediterranean people.  “Food” is identity for the Mediterraneans, a time-place of dialogue and exchange, very important for its cultural, social and economic value that has in each single Mediterranean region. It is important to recall that food is the main good traded  in the Mediterranean and, the upcoming establishment of the Mediterranean Free Trade Area, previously planned for the year 2010.  

The complexity of the interdependent themes that this CIISCAM conference is going to address, within the radical transformation of the contemporary global scenario, requires a multicultural and multisectoral rethinking capable of generating new forms of dialogue, at different specialist levels, towards a wiser use of available human and natural resources. There is a need of new paradigms of reference for a holistic approach, with an effective direct participation of local communities.

The CIISCAM, with its 3^rd international conference, intends to highlight the distinctive historical and evolving role of the Mediterranean Diet in influencing nutrition security and health, taking into high consideration that data show that Mediterranean-rim countries have already started to erode their healthy food habits and lifestyles. 

In the Mediterranean Sea there is a spread awareness of the social, cultural, health and economic dimension of ‘food’, shared by all Mediterranean people.  The diversities of the Mediterranean food cultures as well as many elements of the Mediterranean diet are currently under the risk of extinction for the  effects of globalization, the homogenization of lifestyles, the losing of awareness, meanings, understanding and appreciation, which lead to the erosion of the Mediterranean heritage and to the lack of interest among younger generations about their own heritage.

The Mediterranean diet, recognised as one of the healthiest dietary pattern,  through the variety of  its food cultural heritage, is an unexplored resource in biodiversity and nutrition. The diversity of Mediterranean food cultures, expressed by the wide food variety of the Mediterranean diet, should be recognised as a resource for a sustainable development to be safeguarded and enhanced, in both industrialized and developing countries, to achieve good health and nutritional well being for all in the Mediterranean.

The purpose of the 2009 CIISCAM conference in Parma is to produce an international  scientific consensus position on a new revised Mediterranean diet pyramid, with no copyright, moving from  the current concept of the Mediterranean diet as just a model of healthy eating, that  reduces mortality and morbidity, to an updated well-being lifestyle concept of the Mediterranean diet(s) as a sustainable well-being model, with country-specific, and culturally appropriate versions.

It is necessary to refer more to a Mediterranean LIFESTYLE of which “diet” is only a part. It should include physical and social activity, recreation and rest. It may be possible to construct a Mediterranean food lifestyle index to assess  such a holistic aspect, which could also include the diet score of 8-10 items which has been used successfully to correlate with improved morbidity & mortality.

The current perception of the Mediterranean diet is focuses principally on its functional health benefits, related to the consumption of a balanced quantity of different nutrients, distributed within a pyramid structure, instead of being  associated more to the everyday Mediterranean life style of eating and living, in which “food” has health, aesthetic, cultural, social and religious values - factors that should be  perceived together for a nutritional well being and  education renewal. It is necessary to rethink frameworks under which educational initiatives are developed and addressed to increase diversified food consumption patterns as well as to improve a larger consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables and more physical activity.

Such a change of route in food lifestyle, starting from Greece, Italy, Morocco and Spain, that have requested to the UNESCO the acknowledgement of the Mediterranean diet as an intangible cultural heritage, needs the development of new effective community-based nutritional well being education approaches, that will take into high consideration the experience from the too many food education communication campaigns conducted in the past, at international, national and local levels, that have produced not so many tangible impacts.