La Mediterranean diet represents a universally recognized healthy lifestyle, and for this reason it deserves a museum of its own: nine years after official recognition by UNESCO, the Suor Orsola Benincasa University of Naples, in collaboration with the Roman university La Sapienza and the Campania Region, inaugurated the first virtual museum dedicated to food that favors cereals, fruit, vegetables, seeds, olive oil to the detriment of meat and saturated fats and of which Italy (together with other Southern European countries) has always been the champion.
It is basically a online museum, in which visitors have the opportunity to travel through space and time, navigating through the beyond 150 video interviews made by MedEatResearch (research center led by anthropologists Elisabetta Moro and Marino Niola), which collect and constantly update the precious evidence on this heritage, not only in terms of food and wine but also cultural, educational, economic and touristic.
In the museum it is therefore possible to meet the testimonies of the “pioneers”, i.e. those who discovered and studied the Mediterranean diet; the stories of the grandparents from Campania, ours "Living Libraries", who experience this lifestyle every day as an elixir of youth; and of course those of "Experts" of food and wine in the field of catering and production who spread it every day with their activities, as well as exceptional testimonies of scientists and artists, or starred chefs such as Alfonso Iaccarino, who with their works preserve and restore the social value.
In the “Education” section they are collected video pills on the history of the Mediterranean diet told by anthropologists Elisabetta Moro and Marino Niola, on the innovative educational tools developed by MedEatResearch as the new food pyramid of the Mediterranean diet (presented on the occasion of Expo 2015 and which includes, in addition to the classic food pyramid, a basis of values such as conviviality, sports, seasonality, school and zero waste) and the Edutest of the Mediterranean diet, created in collaboration with health science experts nutrition and metabolic diseases of Federico II University.
The MedEatResearch center was founded in April 2012 with the aim of enhancing and promoting the food heritage of southern Italy and encouraging cultural exchanges on food and wine of the various countries of the Mediterranean area. Since September 2015 it has been recognized by the Ministry of Agriculture as a "UNESCO Mediterranean Diet Community", as co-founder of the UNESCO Charter of Values of the Mediterranean Diet.
