Mediterranean diet and organic, a winning combination:the experts speak at the Organic Festival

Two nutrition experts spoke in a conference about their studies on the benefits of a Mediterranean diet with organic food and their proposals to make it accessible to all.

• The Mediterranean diet associated with the consumption of quality food such as organic brings benefits to the body.
• Buying quality food is a long-term investment in your health.
• This is why we need to make a healthy diet accessible to everyone.

There Mediterranean diet it's a proven eating style beneficial effects on the organism, if then the food consumed is biological, the benefits increase.It was discussed during the Organic Festival of Bologna, last September 23rd:on stage Laura Di Renzo, director of the School of Specialization in Food Science at Tor Vergata University, e Stefania Ruggeri, first Crea-food and nutrition researcher.

Mediterranean and organic diet:what has been observed in scientific studies

Di Renzo, an expert in nutritional genomics and body composition, told of a experiment conducted within a closed community of a monastery:“We asked the resident friars to follow a Mediterranean diet by giving them a specific basket of foods.By making them a diagnosis on fat and muscle mass and on the microbiota at the beginning and at the end of the experiment, we noticed that, by maintaining the same lifestyle and the same energy intake and only changing diet, the body composition had changed in favor of an increase in metabolically active cells and that there had been a modification of the intestinal flora which had allowed the activation of the genes that turn off inflammation".In fact, as explained by the expert Di Renzo, organic products are rich in nutraceutical properties and help to extinguish inflammation associated, for example, withweight gain, but also at cardiovascular diseases and toinfertility.

“The results of a study we conducted on young men with subfertility problems – said Ruggeri – demonstrated that fertility improved with an organic plant-based diet.We have also found that correct nutrition can be an opportunity during pregnancy to reduce the risk of pregnancies, but also to protect the fetus - and therefore the adult of tomorrow - from the risk of obesity and cardiovascular diseases".

Quality food is an investment in health:the proposal to reduce tax on it

Choosing organic food is an investment in your health:“If it is true that organic can cost more than conventional – explained Di Renzo – this differential is minimal compared to the costs for medicines and interventions that would have to be faced in the case, for example, of cardiovascular disease”. Regarding the cost of organic, the two experts underlined the need to making quality food accessible to all:“What we have observed is that increasing taxes on processed foods rich in sugar and salt does not work to change eating habits. Instead, it would be necessary to reduce taxes on foods that have proven quality and pursue food education policies,” said Di Renzo. .

“Pursuing a healthy diet from solidarity packages to hospitals”

Still regarding the accessibility of quality food, the experts work to change the composition of solidarity food parcels:“They should contain wholemeal pasta, greater quantities of fruit and vegetables and, in the case of immigrants, for example, foods that are respectful of their culture because these people are not used to eating pasta or ultra-processed foods, these are foods that are harmful to their microbiota which, among other things, is better than ours", he said. continued Di Renzo:“

Quality food must enter the school and hospital canteens:"THEFood is value, through food and its presentation - in the right containers, in the right ways - we take care of people", concluded Ruggeri.