Mediterranean Diet: Anthropology, Solidarity and Sustainability

Yesterday I had the pleasure to host Pietro Sebastiani, Ambassador of Italy to the Holy See, Don Andrea Ciucci, PhD. Coordinating Secretary of the Pontifical Academy for Life and Stefano Pisani, Mayor of Pollica (Cilento-Italy) for an inspiring conversation.

“It Is cruel and unjust that there is food for everyone but not everybody has access to it” — Pietro Sebastiani, Ambassador of Italy to the Holy See

We started our discussion by reflecting on some of the malfunctions in our food systems. Food security, specifically food access, is one of these malfunctions that concerns every country in the world, from the poorest to the richest. So we asked ourselves: how can the Mediterranean Diet contribute to fighting these dysfunctions?

The Mediterranean Diet can be a useful tool in helping to shift mindsets and in proposing an alternative model. Let’s have a look.

The Mediterranean Diet is not only a diet in a biological and nutritional way, but it is also a way of life. This particular way of life, characterized by conviviality and togetherness. It reinforces a sense of belonging. In this sense, it is curious to notice that “diaita” (the Latin word for diet) also means a place or home.

Thus we can say that the Mediterranean is a big house. Its geographical conformation and its landscape can be compared not to that of an ocean, big and extended, but to the conformation of a lake. “The big Tiberian lake” as a former mayor of Florence, La Pira, defined the Mediterranean Sea. And this is true. Because of this geographical proximity, it has been possible to build a Mediterranean culture.

“There is a Mediterranean Koiné, a Mediterranean common language”, states Pietro Sebastiani.

But this common language, this common culture is not something fixed. As Pollica’s major, Stefano Pisani, says “The Mediterranean lifestyle is a continuum, it is not a fixed and separated culture, but a continuum”. These common values of conviviality in food, but also as a lifestyle of support and reciprocity.

We might say that there is a Mediterranean tradition. But how should we interact with tradition? Should we preserve it and try to protect it as much as we can? Don Ciucci is very illuminating on this point. “Regret of the past is the feeling of those who do not want to face the responsibility of the future. […] Tradition must be seen as a dynamism, not a static condition: tradition is passing from one person to another one. Tradition enables us to look to the future. Tradition is a dynamic experience.”

On the other hand, it is also important to remember that the Mediterranean diet cannot be transformed into an ideal. It needs to stay anchored to time and place. A diet should remain a real experience, a ground to look forward to. Exporting the Mediterranean Diet does not mean that we have to eat as they do in Cilento everywhere, but we think that this diet gives us the tools to understand how we can eat, in a manner that respects the environment, in the different parts of the world.

Education and sensibilization of the younger generations are fundamental to build all of this. Stefano Pisani stresses the importance of education in Cilento. We, as Future Food Institute, together with the Cilento community, are in fact building a Mediterranean School that aims to make students, from Italy, but also from other countries, reflect on this lifestyle and build new solutions to the problems in our current food system. “For us it is important to teach young people that there is a way to the future. We don’t tell them the exact way but we are helping them discover the new way via their own paths” says Mayor Pisani. The definition of the word heritage is closely linked to this idea. Heritage comes from the Latin word patrimonium (pater munus) that means “the duty of the father.” It is the duty of the men and women who generate children, who give continuity to their children, and who give continuity to history. Heritage is an action of those who care to give the younger generations something with which to face life.

“Please permit young people to be the key players of these projects. They are able to do this.” Don Andrea Ciucci, PhD. — Coordinating Secretary of the Pontifical Academy for Life

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