Pollica: cradle of the Mediterranean Diet

What does the Mediterranean diet entail?

In Mediterranean diet only plant-based foods are consumed: vegetables, fruit, potatoes, vegetable, cereals and legumes. But also, if in more limited quantities, of a consumption of red meat, fish, poultry, dairy product, eggs and the best seasoning on our plates…extra virgin olive oil. There is also the option of eating sweets containing refined sugars or honey. Little wine that should be consumed during meals.

Pollica: city ​​of the Mediterranean Diet

The Mediterranean diet originates in Magna Grecia: precisely, and Pollica, especially Pioppi, it is the cradle of the Mediterranean Diet.

In the seaside village of Pioppi he lived (40 years) and studied the US epidemiologist, Ancel Keys, that, in the years “60 coined the term “Mediterranean Diet“.

Together with his other scholar friends, Flaminio Fidanza, Martti Karvonen, Alberto Fidanza e Jeremiah Stamler, they studied the nutrition of the local population and the benefits they enjoyed, realizing that it was what they ate that kept them healthy. Indeed, here live many over centenarians of which few have heart disease and Alzheimer's disease.

So with a collaboration between the researchers ofUniversity of San Diego (California) andUniversity La Wisdom of Rome have begun to know the secret of Pioppi.

So it was understood that this diet has important demonstrated beneficial effects , in the last century, also from science.

E’ thanks to Ancel Keys, than the Mediterranean diet, it has been known and appreciated all over the world so much, that in 2010, has been named Heritage of Humanity of”Unesco.

This diet is really a lifestyle: indeed, the term “diaita“, for the Greeks it meant "rule of life”Understood not only as a dietary model but also as a lifestyle is about true well-being.

A Museum for the Mediterranean Diet

In Pioppi, a museum has been dedicated to the Mediterranean diet and nutrition as a lifestyle: the Pioppi living museum which is located on the first floor of the Palazzo Vinciprova and is managed by Legambiente. It is also part of the network ofEcomuseum of the Mediterranean Diet.

Named Pollica “slow city”

The Pollica participates in the international movement Cittaslow , is part of the "City of Good Living", founded in 1999: the movement is inspired by principles Slow Food. It is a new way of living: from producing to consuming and from living to telling life experiences: all is “slow food”.

A beautiful and good way of life that serves to have a life that leads to well-being.