The “Week of the Italian Cusine in the World” event strongly supported by the Minister of Health, Orazio Schillaci in the year in which Italian cuisine is a candidate for recognition of the title of intangible heritage of humanity by UNESCO, was carried out at the Italian embassy in Washington with the coordination of the embassy’s school director, Professor Maria Fusco.
Living healthy in a healthy world, where food is the central pivot that synthesizes fertility, prosperity and longevity.
They are the cornerstones of the project dedicated to the diffusion of the Mediterranean diet among the young generations that the Ministry of Health brought to Washington on the occasion of the eighth edition of the Week of Italian Cuisine in the World, the initiative promoted by the Farnesina from 13 to 19 November, which in the USA alone includes over 40 events this year.
Monday 13 November
One hundred and forty students who attended the Auditorium of the Italian Embassy and the other one hundred students connected from Philadelphia met the delegation of the Ministry of Health made up of the Director for Hygiene, Food Safety and Nutrition, Ugo Della Marta, and the Dr. Rosa Gaglione. Director Della Marta recalled how the Mediterranean diet, identified and studied in the 1950s by the American doctor Ancel Keys, today represents a further link between Italy and the United States.
The professionals collaborating on the project, Dr Marco Silano, Director of the Department for Cardiovascular Diseases of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità and Dr. Andrea Pezzana Director of the Clinical Nutrition complex structure of the ASL City of Turin and the University of Turin, have focused attention on the importance of making healthy food choices, illustrating the nutritional principles of the Mediterranean tradition and the benefits that can derive from them for man and for the environment.
The founder of the Future Food Institute, Dr. Sara Roversi, also participated in the project, emphasizing the need for virtuous practices for nutrition and underlining how Italy still proudly remains today the heart from which start again to make healthy and sustainable food choices.
Tuesday 14 November
The initiative landed at the “Casa Italiana” museum in Washington where the students participated in the Challenge proposed by Dr. Roversi “Eat well, stay well, save the planet”.
At the end of the meeting the students experienced an extra virgin olive oil tasting process which was repeated again on Wednesday 15 November also at the Philadelphia headquarters.
The Washington appointment closed with the WorkShop “sustainability efforts of the swine meat products and olive oil industries, ingredients of the Italian table” organized by the Agriculture and Food attaché of the Italian embassy in Washington, Anna Beatrice Ciorba in collaboration with the ‘American Italian Food Coalition. At the center of the debate are experiences and proposals for the implementation of sustainable production practices in the Italian and US pig and olive oil supply chains.
The Workshop, opened by the Italian Ambassador Mariangela Zappia, was attended by Director Della Marta who reiterated the importance of enhancing the sustainability of the food chain through multilevel governance and the adoption of sustainable diets for the planet, without forgetting the need of investments in research and new technologies.
The training process also remains fundamental, within which, Della Marta recalled, the work of the team of coordinated experts of the Directorate for food safety and nutrition of the Ministry of Health in Italian schools and abroad is inserted, in the condition that we must start again from the younger generations to build a better state of health.
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