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Mediterranean Diet: Anthropology, Solidarity and Sustainability

As part of the online events programme organized by the Future Food Institute and the Municipality of Pollica, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the inscription of the Mediterranean Diet in the UNESCO lists of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, Ambassador Pietro Sebastiani attended the event “Mediterranean Diet: Anthropology, Solidarity and Sustainability”, which took place online on Tuesday 24 November 2020.

In his speech, Ambassador Sebastiani emphasized that one of the greatest challenges for humanity is providing proper food to every human being: there are still many people who eat a diet unbalanced.

“If we want to guarantee a healthy and adequate diet for all the inhabitants of the earth, we must start from the awareness that the planet already produces enough calories to feed its inhabitants: therefore, the problem is not only to increase production and productivity, but also to guarantee equal access to food for the most vulnerable groups with a spirit of solidarity, eliminating losses and waste”. “The traditional Mediterranean diet” he continued “can contribute to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, because it guarantees the correct balance between nature and man by protecting the renewal of natural resources”.

The Covid-19 pandemic stressed the need for a renewed pact to ensure access to food for all, in a context of global solidarity that supports not only the poorest countries but also the most developed ones. In this sense, of fundamental importance was the launch of the Food Coalition, a global coalition launched by the FAO at the suggestion of Italy to prevent the health crisis from becoming a global food crisis.

Moreover, Ambassador Sebastiani recalled that the Mediterranean Diet is not a simple list of foods, but it is also a lifestyle (diaita in ancient Greek) that embodies the cultural identity and traditions of the communities in the Mediterranean Sea (or ” the great Lake of Tiberias”, as it was called by Giorgio La Pira). Here, the values of hospitality, neighborhood, intercultural dialogue and creativity are combined with respect for the territory and biodiversity.

Stefano Pisani, Mayor of Pollica (Cilento), encouraged us to discover the real places of the Mediterranean diet: for the citizens of Pollica, the Mediterranean diet is simply their life, made up of small daily gestures and social interactions between people. In addition, what concerns the production of food is linked to the goal of preserving biodiversity.
The Mediterranean Sea could be defined as the first form of the Internet, a network that allowed exchanges and communications across its shores. For this reason, today the Mediterranean culture represents a synthesis between the past and the present and embraces the different cultures of the peoples who have occupied over the centuries the Mediterranean sea.

The secretary of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Don Andrea Ciucci, focused on the meaning of some key words. “Tradition” indicates dynamism, not a static condition: having a tradition means something that helps to look to the future. The word “inheritance”, or patrimonium, which comes from the Latin pater munus, indicates the duty of the father who gives continuity to history: “inheritance” is therefore the duty to history, which does not mean accumulating, but having responsibility for the future.

To find out more, you can see the registration here.

 

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