Reason and Feeling: the Mediterranean Diet at the United Nations
In “Letters to Contemporaries”, Hermann Hesse writes that “those who do not adapt to the world are always close to finding themselves. Those who adapt to the world never find themselves, but may become national councillors.”
Sitting at the table in a United Nations meeting room, surrounded by high-level institutional representatives, Ambassadors from the Permanent Missions of the countries belonging to the Emblematic Communities, representatives of FAO and UNESCO, and alongside the Mayor of Pollica, who was leading this mission, I found myself thinking about this quote.
I chose not to adapt to the world. I chose instead to know it, discover it, taste it and experience it fully through the many international missions that have taken me from the halls of power to field explorations, getting my hands dirty and wet in farms, on the boats of Icelandic and Cilento fishermen, in experimental laboratories and incubators, while listening to innovators, scientists, entrepreneurs, activists, philanthropists and investors from around the world.
I experienced it in classrooms in the Bronx and in those of my own city, attended by my children, and through the stories of more than one thousand Climate Shapers trained together with FAO.
I chose not to adapt so that I could remain constantly able to identify what is good within the ongoing tension between “the world I would like to see” and the planetary challenges we are called upon to face. I chose not to adapt in order to remain close to the values that drove me to build an ecosystem capable of contributing to the change we need today and reflecting the world I would like to create.
It was from these values and this spirit that a journey began, eventually bringing me to that table, where the focus of dialogue, concrete commitment and shared approaches to taking action for the Planet was the Mediterranean Diet.
More than any other topic, it connects those values with projects designed to meet one of humanity’s most fundamental needs: to nourish people in a healthy way while doing so in a way that is also healthy for the Planet.
This discussion took place just as negotiations at COP27 in Egypt were drawing to a close, where I had personally witnessed the intense atmosphere surrounding the climate emergency and the contradictions of a diverse humanity attempting to confront it with measures that remain entirely insufficient.
It took place while the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs celebrated, for the seventh time, the international promotional initiative “Week of Italian Cuisine in the World”, choosing to place particular emphasis on sustainability and innovation — the very issues at the heart of my Institute.
And finally, this discussion took place at a time when the foundations of civil coexistence are once again being questioned around the world, beginning with human rights: with a deeply repressive World Cup in Qatar, women continuing to die in Iran and Afghanistan simply for wanting to express themselves or attend university, and a genocide at Europe’s doorstep continuing to claim lives and undermine the foundations of democracy.
All of this is connected to the Mediterranean Diet, understood as a way of life and as a model for bringing different peoples together in their diversity, while respecting rights, health, balance among human beings and balance between humanity and nature.
The Municipality of Pollica, too, certainly does not adapt to the world. In fact, we organized the United Nations event together.
There is something highly symbolic about the fact that this is a municipality of just 2,000 inhabitants, with an ancestral history of human culture stretching back to the Eleatic School of Parmenides, Melissus and Zeno, continuing through the long Middle Ages and the birth of the Salerno Medical School, and reaching the scientific systematization of the Mediterranean Diet through the work of Ancel and Margaret Keys.
Today, Pollica leads and coordinates the Network of UNESCO Emblematic Communities of the Mediterranean Diet while constantly looking toward the future through the Pollica 2050 model, founded on integral ecology and sustainable development.
It is symbolic because it overturns the traditional paradigms of political models in which the centre makes decisions and the periphery simply receives them.
Instead, a municipality of 2,000 inhabitants in Southern Italy has become a point of reference that creates, collaborates, opens boundaries, shares and experiments with the future — all the way to the United Nations in New York, where it presented a vision closely aligned with the values guiding us on this journey to discover opportunities and solutions for navigating the perfect storm of climate, environmental, economic, energy, political, cultural and social crises.
“Mediterranean Diet – Lifestyle for a Sustainable Future – A Cultural Asset, a Strategic Tool, Sustainable Development” was the title of the conference organized at the United Nations on November 18, 2022 by the Italian mission led by the Future Food Institute and the Municipality of Pollica, just a few days after the anniversary of the Mediterranean Diet’s recognition as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage.
The Italian delegation was welcomed by H.E. Maurizio Massari, Italy’s Ambassador to the United Nations and Permanent Representative to the UN, who confirmed that the “Mediterranean Diet is a tangible example of a driving force for sustainable development and a model of excellence for ensuring sustainable food systems across their social, economic and environmental dimensions.”
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