Reason and Feeling of the Mediterranean diet at the UN.
Hermann Hesse in "Letters to Contemporaries" writes that "those who do not fit into the world are always close to finding themselves. Who adapts to the world is never found, but can become national councillor".
Sitting at the table of the UN room, surrounded by high profile institutional representatives, by Ambassadors of the Permanent Representations of the Countries of the Emblematic Communities at the United Nations, by representatives of FAO, UNESCO and in the company of the Mayor of the Municipality of Pollica at the head of this Mission, I thought of this sentence.
I chose not to adapt to the world. I have chosen to know it, discover it, taste it, live it fully through my thousand international missions from the palaces of power to the explorations, soiling and bathing my hands, in the fields or on the boats of Icelandic or Cilento fishermen, in experimental laboratories and incubators and listening to innovators, scientists, entrepreneurs, activists, philanthropists, investors from all over the world, and again in the classrooms of the Bronx schools and in those of my city, of my children, and again through the stories of the over one thousand Climate Shapers trained with FAO.
I have chosen not to adapt to be constantly able to intercept the good in that constant tension between "the world I would like" and the planetary challenges we face. I chose not to adapt to be close to the values that have forced me to build an ecosystem that can contribute to the change that is needed today and that resembles the world that I would like.
It is from these values and it is from this spirit that a journey began that brought me to that table, where the center of dialogue, of concrete commitment and of shared ways of acting for the Planet was the Mediterranean DietThat is, the theme that more than any other binds those values, to planning to meet the needs of all humanity: nourish humanity in a healthy and healthy way and do so in a healthy and healthy way for the Planet.
This issue was addressed just as the negotiations of the COP27 in Egypt, where I also saw and experienced the agitated atmosphere of the climatic emergency and the contradictions of a variegated humanity that tries to deal with it through completely insufficient maneuvers. This theme was addressed, while the Foreign Ministry celebrated for the seventh time the international promotional event "Week of Italian Cuisine in the World" and chose to do so by giving priority precisely to the issues of sustainability and innovation on which my Institute is centered. And finally, this theme has been addressed while in the world the pillars of civil coexistence are being questioned, starting with human rights, with a championship in Qatar obscurantist, with the women who continue to die in Iran and Afghanistan for wanting to express themselves or simply enter the University, with a genocide at the gates of Europe that continues to claim victims and undermine the foundations of democracy. All this belongs to the Mediterranean Diet, which is placed as a lifestyle and model of the union of peoples in diversity and respect for rights, health, the balance between men and women and nature.
Even the Municipality of Pollica is definitely not suitable for the world. And in fact we organized the event at the UN together. And it is so iconic that it is a Municipality of 2000 inhabitants and an ancestral history of humanity that has traveled the Eleatica School of Parmenide, Melisso and Zenone, through the long Middle Ages and the birth of the Medical School Salernitana, up to the systematization of science on the Mediterranean Diet with Ancel and Margaret Keys, living a present of guidance and coordination of the Network of Communities emblematic UNESCO of the Mediterranean Diet and always looking to the future with the model Pollica 2050 founded on integral ecology and sustainable development. It’s iconic because it overturns the traditional paradigms of political models where centrality decides and the periphery takes over. And instead a Municipality of Southern Italy of 2000 inhabitants has become a reference point that simply creates, collaborates, opens the borders, shares, and experiences the future, up to the UN in New York to tell his vision so close to the values that guide us in this journey to discover the opportunities and solutions to get out of the perfect storm of climate, environmental, economic, energy, political crisis, cultural, social.
“Mediterranean Diet – Lifestyle for a Sustainable Future – A cultural asset, a strategic tool, sustainable development”: this is the title of the conference that the Italian Mission led by the Future Food Institute and from municipality of Pollica at the UN on November 18, 2022, a couple of days after the birthday of the Mediterranean Diet as a World Heritage Site.
The Italian delegation was welcomed byItalian Ambassador to the UN, H.E. Maurizio Massari, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, who confirmed that the "Mediterranean diet is a tangible example of a driving force for sustainable development and a model of excellence to ensure sustainable food systems touching the various social, economic and environmental dimensions".
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