The Med Diet 4.0 framework: a multidimensional driver for revitalizing the Mediterranean diet as a sustainable diet model.

Abstract

Abstract The Mediterranean diet (MD), despite the fact that it is acknowledged as one of the healthiest diets in the world, is paradoxically becoming less the diet of choice in most Mediterranean countries. This process of erosion of the MD is alarming as it has undesirable impacts not only on health, but also on social, cultural, economic and environmental domains in the Mediterranean area. The Med Diet 4.0 has been developed as a multidimensional framework to revitalize the MD. It characterizes the MD as a sustainable diet model, through four interdependent sustainable benefits, with country-specific variations: (i) well-documented nutrition and health advantages, preventing chronic and degenerative diseases and reducing public health costs; (ii) low environmental impacts and richness in biodiversity, reducing pressure on natural resources and climate change; (iii) positive local economic returns, reducing rural poverty; and (iv) high social and cultural food values, increasing appreciation, mutual respect and social inclusion. All these elements interact and feed into each other synergistically, contributing to holistic well-being of individuals and communities. The Med Diet 4.0 has the broader scope to catalyze a renewed multi-stakeholder interest in the MD as a sustainable driver connecting food consumption to production towards more Mediterranean sustainable food systems. It will allow a new awareness among Mediterranean people of the multiple sustainable values and benefits of the MD, thereby facilitating its revitalization. The Med Diet 4.0 reshapes a contemporary knowledge of the MD and its appreciation in terms of a more holistic vision of sustainability linked to nutritional well-being and food security. The complexity of interdependent challenges, within the radical transformation of the contemporary Mediterranean and global scenario, requires new forms of transdisciplinary and intercultural dialogues, strategies and research, at different levels, for the revitalization of the MD. Within such complexity, the Med Diet 4.0 provides a synthesis to better understand and enhance the MD as a sustainable diet model in the context of the improvement of the sustainability of Mediterranean food systems, reconnecting diets, food consumption, food production, food security and sustainability in the Mediterranean region. It provides useful insights to tackle the challenging policy issue of balancing human and planetary health, within an interconnected, globalized food system.