Dora Dragoni Dıvrak

1Università di Bologna,Bologna,Italy.

Abstract In occasion of FAO World Food Day,recurring each year on october 16th since 1945,we will deal with food,nutrition,diet,mediterrenean diet,GIFT diet,and traditional chinese medicine models.It will also be interesting to talk about concepts like right to food,and sustainable diets.It is essential to get and have more and more awareness in food field,since metabolic diseases are preventable with an healthy lifestyle;mediterrenean diet is a fundamental pillar,but such dysfunctions seem to grow in a society in which every problem is solved eating for all our daily stresses;nervous eating particularly in difficult time seems to grow as well,and obesity hits 10-15% of people during last 20 years.To have a less negative impact and to recover healthy lifestyles,we have to know more about food,nutrition,eating.We should encourage also practice of physical activity (at least 30 minutes per day-10.000 steps e.g.),and:stress management with mindfulness activities,a valid quality of affective life;parallely we should reduce screen time and increase contact with nature.

Key Words:food;nutrition;diet;mediterrenean diet;GIFT diet;traditional Chinese medicine.

Eating good,eating healthy

We are what we eat,so food awareness is fundamental to be well,to feel good [1]:eating in right quantity and quality is essential.Being interested in nutrition means also to deal with animal and vegetable(that we are eating) sustenance and it means treating all the nutritional food processing chain.

Particularly we talk about food topics when we refer to searching and choosing the food,we talk about nutrition when we deal with digestion,absorption of elements called nutrients.Metabolism concept can be simplified defining how nutrtients act at cellular level,what they become for our organism.

An healthy and good nutrition positively impacts on that dysfuction serie such as overweight,obesity,diabetes,tumors,cardiovascular diseases,like also World Health Organization remembers.

Diet concept infact refers to the Ancient Greece idea,where the word diaita meant lifestyle.It would be reductive limiting us to only nutritional precepts,but it is true that it is essential being conscious of nutritional basis,to associate with the awareness of an healthy lifestyle,based on:fitness,mindfulness,affective life,sleep hygiene.It is also important to recur at first to alternative and preventive medicines.

Talking about foods and nutrients,we can remember the anti‑nutrients,that when hired can bind or inhibit some functions so to determine a resultant effect of reduced calhoric intake;non‑nutrients,as fiber,don’t make calhories and counteracts refined food impact.

A food then is endowed with qualities(like hygiene,sensoriality like color,maturation,freshness,perfume,consistency),stagionality(better of‑season than imported ones),and sustainability,of which we will talk about later on.

Foods can be so classified:

a.milk and dairy:containing high quality proteins,calcium,vitamins.A standard portion is 125 gr/die,with variations according to freshness vs seasoning.

b.meat,fish,eggs:with high quality proteins,iron,minerals,vitamin B.A portion is more or less 100 gr/die,being more or less equivalent to the proteic daily need or intake.It is calculated starting from body weight;to maintain mean mass we should eat at least the same quantity in grams of the body weight in kg (standard 70 kg ‑>at least 70 gr/die).

c.cereals and tubers:containing amid,vitamin B,low quality proteins,fibers if integral(whole).A standard portion is 70 gr/die(pasta,bread,cereals,potatoes).

d.legumes:containing amid,fiber,oligoelements,medium quality proteins.An example of daily intake is 100 grams.

e.fats:they can be essential elements,since they can contain poli‑unsatured fatty acids,and they bring lot of energy.A portion is 10 grams;they should bring no more than 10% of daily calories.

f.fruit and vegetables:containing water,fiber,water‑soluble vitamins,minerals.5 portions per day are suggested,possibly of the 5 colors to cover all the anti‑oxidants substances.

We can also talk about energetic balance:basal metabolism corresponds to 70% of the total balance,then we can have 15‑30%characterized by physical activity energy(30 minutes/die).

Talking about macronutrients we find:

a.‑proteins,as told the intake is 1 gr/kg (70 gr/die);the origin should be 50% animals 50% vegetables

b.‑lipids,with energetic,thermoregulatory and defense functions;being omega‑6 in dry fruit,and omega‑3 in fish

c.‑carbohydrates;if we want to evitate chetones we should eat at least 50‑100 gram/die (so they are necessary and essential).They can be simple (glucose,fructose,saccarose,lactose) or complex (amid,glycogen).

Micronutrients are minerals and vitamins,antioxitants included.We should also make some considerations:

One about the concept of caloric calculation:the word calorie comes from latin “calor”,heat,and originally it refers to the efficency of vapor machines [2];1 kilocalorie is the energy necessary to heat of one degree C 1 kilo of water.Only at the end of 1800 we started using it to calculate food energy.Atwater (USA chemic scientist) used calorie to measure both food energy and also body energy(for basal+special functions).He diffused such ideas so to help poors to discover which foods could be better for a complete and adequate diet.People learnt that 1 gr of carbohydrates releases 4 cal,while 1 gr of fats gives more or less 9 cal.In 1900 in USA they start evaluating meals according to such caloric criteria.In 1960 people want to be aware:at first fats are considered dangerous,but it is partially due to the fact that some sugar‑companies paid Harvard University to divulgate that fats were dangerous more than sugar,particularly linking this to obesity phenomenon (in 40 years it is tripled -40% of world population is now overweight);with parallel increases of cardiovascular diseases,type 2 diabetes,etc.

To sum up:a diet can not only be based on caloric calculation and evaluations,since body is not simplifiable as a heat machine model,being more complex.Moreover it is difficult also to calculate the exact caloric content of a food:two same‑calorie foods can be different.Finally each person elaborates in different ways calories.It is also true that when we eat,the moment of the day,can impact on metabolism;and the cooking way can make a food more digestible (50-95% of absorption variability).

So counting calories doesn’t always help to control food or to have an healthy diet.

Another consideration about hungriness circuits:food behaviour is based on the prandial sequence [3]:after hungriness stimulus,brain brings us to eat,then short term and long term satiety follow,so not to be hungry anymore after our meal.Hungriness stimulus is due to a central glycopenia:a sugar fall in some hypotalamic neurons,regulating food behaviour.Usually a meal is preceded by a glicemic fall bringing to hungriness sensation.Then we start eating and mouth sends signals to hypotalamus and its neurons so to enable them progressively (sensory exhaustion).Then satiety follows,lasting many hours after a meal,and it coincides with absence of motivation toward food:we do not need and do not want to eat.

Other mechanisms:stomach produces grehelin,increasing in concentration during a meal;pancreas secretes insulin,sending to brain satiety sensation;similar contribute from adipous tissue producing leptin (being this tissue not inert but with endocrin functions),that decreases food motivation.Also vagus nerve,stimulated by gastric‑enteric dilatation,links intestin to enkefalic truncus,so to vehiculate satiety signals.

Finally pleasure and gratification sensations coming from eating,act on such mechanisms regulating hungriness:motivation develops in nucleus accumbens;dopamine stimulates cortex but true pleasure centers(hedonic hotspots) are activated by endogenous opioids.

Mediterrenean diet

Mediterrenean diet,the way of living of Mediterrenean basin people,diffused and evolved in millennia,is a model categorized by Ancel Keys,an american biologist nutritionist.Since 2010 mediterrenean diet has been classified as intangible heritage of humanity by UNESCO.

We could actually consider it a complex of traditions,and eventually of landscapes,knowledge and flavors.As told,diaita is a lifestyle,a serie of food practices;like Hyppocrates tought “let food be your medicine and medicine your food”.

Talking about the composition it is characterized by:olive oil,vegetables,fruit,whole cereals,legumes,fish,milk and dairy,few meat;flavours and spices increasing and improving food palatability.

It is a sustainable diet,from an environmental point of view.

It is based on legumes and fruit,…mainly of vegetable origin.It is ideal to prevent diabetes and chronic metabolic diseases.It is characterized by a nutritional pyramid:at the basis we find liquids,then we have pasta bread and rice (whole),then fruit and vegetables,finally dairy,legumes,dry fruit,eggs;once per week potatoes,fish,rarely red meat.Very limited sweets consuption.

There are also traditions,like conviviality,frugality,sustainability,seasonability.

Breakfast is very important in such model:its caloric and qualitatively intake impacts on the whole day.Another idea we can get is that of the unique plate:pasta and legumes,meat and potatoes,fish and vegs,with caloric saving due to portion reduction.

It is important that even in young people such culture is maintained and diffused as a concept:in some places it is tradition only in elderly poeple;in every case it is a model to study and to discover for everyone so to maintain the better psycho‑physic wellness.

Mediterrenean diet is linked to anthropologic dimension of these places,rich in cultures coming from different countries [4]:geographically we talk about a sea confining between Gibilterra and Dardanelli,and three continents melted at the oriental side.Cultures date back to Sumers,minoic and Creta civilizations,Phoenicians,Greeks,Etrurians,Carthage,Rome.

Model is the same for everyone:vine,olives,terraced crops;common and distinctive elements going out of the linguistic and religious border.

With time then,while Mediterrenean cradle of civilization extinguishes,mediterrenean diet passes to be intangible heritage of humanity until being almost banalized as moda,mantra,commonplace… being and staying the dietetic symbol that we are and will be.

Actually there are mediterrenean constants.In Neolitic time,in East Mediterrenean there were populations surviving thanks to agriculture.So cereals were the main element of dietetic pyramid.Then such civilizations were able to integrate other foods being better ones,coming from human activites (like breeding and farms):cereals,legumes,olives and oils,dairy,meat and fish,dry fruits,vegetables,aromatic herbs.But food precariety was always a problem.

There was not at all a self‑sufficiency due to the position that Mediterrenean has:these regions are exposed to a north climate with cold winds from mountains in winter,and closed at south by african(desertical) anti‑cyclon.

Seasonality was at the same time the key to survive,eating foods according to what land could produce,but on the other side famine were quite diffused:storing foods was the only possibility to supply in poor periods.

We can say that Ancel Keys found a model already evoluted from traditions along time,and that more than toward a diet he faced a real food and life culture [4].

He followed american army (inventing the K‑ration,useful to survive out for a day with chocolate,canned meat,biscuits),and in 1950 he classified what he found during WWII period.He noticed that chronic diseases (particularly choronaric),so diffused in USA,were less prevalent in Italy.The secret was for sure a poor in fats(animal fats) diet,rich in poli‑unsatured (vegetable fats) with few refined sugar,but with complex carbohydrates and fibers (like whole cereals,legumes),and antioxidasnts (fruits,vegs).In 1970 he published some volumes talking about this diet,making it a mass‑mediatic phenomenon.

Parallely in Italy every job related to agriculture started to decline due to industrialization,diffusing also new lifestyles.

Food industry indulge to such ideas,with canned foods like vegetable oils,tomato sauce,wines.In this period Paleo diet studies begin:with no cereals,legumes,or dairy and refined sugars (as if agriculture brought damages to diet and health!).

Actually differences between paleo and mediterrenean diets are only apparent:the secret is always the variability and integration,like the origin of food…autoproduction.

In 2010 UNESCO recognition came:not only because mediterrenean diet is better,but also because is a local culture very extended and shared,promoting social interaction,and diffusing legends,stories,songs;it respects land and biodiversity,and it guarantees lots of crafts linked to food production.

We could represent mediterrenean diet with a cabinet:madia.It is of ancient origins,but now reproposed by architects like a piece of furniture however exulating from original meaning;it had two main compartments,one for whole wheat,noble,and one,next,…for less qualified wheat like mais or chestnuts.They were stored to face quaresimal spring famine,the most critic season for supplies.This cabinet could also contain:olive oil,fish,dairy,legumes,vegetables,dry fruit,aromatic herbs.So it can represent the whole variety of mediterrenean diet.

Fortunately there are also nowadays some mediterrenean niches,original areas and places in mediterrenean inlands with few pizzeria,no fast foods,and lots of traditions still alive:they are voices of a diffused testimony having lot to communicate[4].

Studies and nutritional models

Campbell,a famous american scientist,in his book “The China study”[5] suggests to follow a correct diet in order to prevent and to solve or regress many chronic diseases,like heart disease,cancer,diabesity,or autoimmune diseases.

In USA more than a half of the population has an health issue needing the use of at least a medicine regularly.In his opionion this situation can be helped and solved thanks to the three main meals.It is infact possibile to die old and healthy,with a satisfactory quality of life.

One of the most important studies that he did is about aflatossins:in lab animals low proteins diet can inhibit the cancer formation by these toxics in independent way relatively to the carcinogenic administred.Animal proteins are those causing more problems,while vegetable proteins are healthier.

In his chinese study giving the title to his book,he analized the correlations between diets and diseases in rural China and in Taiwan.For sure like underlined,proteins are one of the discrimining points to determine the quality of a diet.According to Campbell,human body can derive all the essential aminoacids from the natural vegetable proteins variety that we can find everyday.Again,in a Philippine study he has this feedback:better nourished families are those in which some kids got hepatic tumors,while those following poor diets are someway protected.

He talks then for a whole chapter about cancer,underlining that proteins are cause of it,since they increase the foci of development;not like this,soya proteins for example.

It seems that in rural China only 10% of the caloric intake is proteic.Infact wellbeing world is hit mainly by cancer,while poor world is hit particularly by infectious diseases and the scene comes from different lifestyles.

Talking about lipids,it is suggested to get them eating until 30% in proportion in a day.According to his studies,too many lipids are associated to both hypercolesterolemia and also to risks like early development and breast cancer.

Also fibers are fundamental:they don’t reduce iron absorption and they are protective above enteric healthiness.

Author suggests to prefer complex carbohydrates toward those refined,in order to make glicemia stable.

Then some chapters deal with chronic diseases,underlining the advantages of equilibrated diets:heart diseases,obesity particularly in infancy,diabetes (focusing on the importance of physical activity),cancer forms (for example dairy are related with prostate tumor),and autoimmune diseases.

A list follows,some principles to have a good diet and healthy life:

a.‑if we follow it correctly we will get more benefits

b.‑vitamins integrators are not a real solution,the original nutrients are better

c.‑animal foods can be replaced by plants and vegetable foods,giving similar elements

d.‑genes don’t determine automatically the disease,but they need activation and they can be controlled by diet

e.‑diet can control also the negative effect of toxic medicines

f.‑a correct diet can prevent and heal too

We are truly facing real disinformation,coming also from economic interests:in America the expenses related to food overcome 700 billions of dollars every year (considering also dairy and fruit industries)…

We have to evaluate always with attention every information we read,trying to understand also the eventual conspiracy.

Talking about diet and nutritional suggestions in Italy,it is very important to remember the GIFT diet,example of “signal nutrition”.Created by Speciani brothers,it is well described in their book “Guide to GIFT diet” [6].GIFT means graduality,individuality,flexibility,tone.The essential core refers to the hypotalamic action of adipochines,and other molecules,able to regulate our hungriness and our metabolism if we follow correct nutritional rules.

Infact,like also a recent study suggests [7],they can regulate dopaminergic neurocircuits part of reward system,suppressing in this way hungriness.

Particularly leptin,discovered in 1990,acts like a molecule connecting body and brain giving information about metabolic condition and controlling energetic balance.Null‑leptin animals become obese since it doesn’t regulate with stop signal eating behavior.There is an axis leptin‑dopamine controlling body weight consisting in relative increase of dopamine and a parallel gabaergic inibition of some regulatory circuits toward appetite sensation:a wellness condition derives so that organism stops to eat once got equilibrium.

Physical activity is fundamental too:adiponectin produced by adipous tissue and irisine (miochine developed by muscolar tissue)can stimulate hypotalamus with a derived metabolic activation,and of slimming,other than of wellbeing induction in psycho‑physical terms,with gain of complexive health.Hypotalamus regulates both our endocrin system both every our vital function,so that diet and signal nutrition become the solution from the inside for lots of disfunctions and the best preventive way we can apply.We know that on the contrary no medicine can heal us,while lifestyle can.

Endocrine disruptors are important too:sugars and refined flour.

How to distribute meal calories? In the morning organism is more oriented toward consuption,due to hormonal peaks;in the afternoon we tend to accumulate,being active insulin and GH metabolisms.If we give an abundance signal since the beginning to hypothalamus,it will tend to inhibit the hungriness signals for the whole day.

GIFT diet believes in protein intake,since it is based also on physical activity and on maitaining a correct proteic muscolar and physic asset.Actually,if we eat a proteic source,in weight it doesn’t match to real proteins that we are assuming,so we should well evaluate how to fulfill correctly our needs,being the proteins only a part of a portion.

Fiber value is essential:wheat germ is usually discarded but it contains also poliunsatured oils,B vitamins,oligoelements,antioxidants… nutritionally very important,without considering the relevance of fiber for microbiota.

Physical activity can increase our metabolism,not only in quantitative way but also from a qualitative point of view.Prescribing fitness means suggesting health,in preventive way toward all the chronic diseases cited before.We remember that benefits are immediate and also long lasting,while those of medicines are momentary.

Even psichic equilibrium is fundamental for a correct metabolism,for example sleep hygiene permits to gain less weight.Nervous hungriness or anxious symptoms can negatively impact on our diet.In conclusion we can give suggestions about how approaching to food:for example it is better to choose season foods and local ones.Between drinks we have to avoid sugar,colors,preservants,soda.Between carbohydrates,if they contain also proteins and fiber it is better.Again,good choice vegetable fats and poliunsatured ones.Ideal biologic products also meat and fish.

In the kitchen we can avoid sugar,flour,margarine,fried fats;limiting salt,cured meats,glutine,alcol.

Finally we can remember examples of day by day diets,and we will see results having positive impact on our health and wellness.

Food and chinese medicine

For sure agricultural cultivation models now are others than those taking place in ancient China,being it a country and an epoch of reference for every cultural dictate related to Traditional Chinese Medicine.Moreover now in some foods are used also some negative substances,like colors,preservants,emulsifiers,flavorings,antibiotics,hormones,even toxics[8].

This is really far way from historic and medical China,whose texts came to us and are basis to learn chinese medicine theories.

To plan a diet it is important to make a general diagnostic panel,particularly about energetic equilibrium related to all organs:we can find a prevalence of yin or yang of some bowel for exaple.With this method it is possible to verify which foods are suggested and which are to avoid.

Talking about elements,if a food brings heat to our metabolism it is defined as yang,if it brings cold energy it is classified as yin.

We can have yang cereals (e.g.mais) or yin cereals (e.g.pearl barley)to wisely choose to eat well,according to which prevalence we have to make prevale every time into our body.Even meat can be yang (e.g.beef) or yin (e.g.chicken).Vegetables are usually yin but we can also find some yang (e.g.peppers,onions,carrots,turnips) particularly if dressed with spices.

In practice:it is necessary to eat yang foods if we have energetic deficits,asthenia,cold sensation,hypersomnia,depression and overweight/obesity.We choose yin foods with headache,prevalence of emotion like anger,heat sensation,palpitations,insomnia.

We can remember also jing elements like sprouts(e.g.soya,greek hay)or fertilized eggs:foods giving origin to new life and so they have more energy,the energy of life.

A food can then be heat or cold for two components:for the temperature in which it is served and eaten,and also for the modality of cooking.There are foods cooked at steam or at water bath bringing less energy,being so more yin than fried ones.

According to chinese tradition,using lots of cold foods (e.g.salads,ice creams,fruit,cold drinks) can reduce spleen‑yang,so it can become a weak organ (needing usually heat dry foods):some symptoms can derive,like negative digestion,diarrhea,cold sensation,stomach ache.So it is better to eat cooked foods,particulary in those suffering from digestive deficit [8].

A similar impact on spleen has the use of sweet or fat foods:it can start flegma (catarrh) particularly on respiratory functions and bloating.

If we eat too many hot foods,spiced ones,we can have yang excess like thirsty and gastric pain or burning sensation.

We should also eat in the correct quantity:if we eat too much we make spleen weak and flegma appears;if we eat too little (like in developping countries or in case of elderly malnutrition,or in those suffering of eating disorders or in veganism and extreme diets) we can face deficits like this of blood (particularly in women),or of qi (the body energy) impacting again on spleen,deriving negative effects on the 5 elements equilibrium,base for a good health[8].

Food for health:manifesto for global health

Food for health manifesto has been produced and diffused by Vandana Shiva with her association Navdanya International in order to promote the good idea about food for health [9].Food is vehicle of health (or disease) pursuing only the correct agro‑nutritional systems.

After the abandonement of natural food systems both agricultural and also nutritional,not following anymore the classical diets that always distinguished human era,people on Earth are hit by a true and a real health crisis.Food industrial global system impacts in a very negative way on environment and on our health,due to epigenetics.

Industrial agriculture is now based on monocultures,on fossil fuels and on phytochemical use;so foods that we derive are poor in nutrients and full of poisons,radiations,toxins.In this way nutritive quality decreases,and health damages increase.They say that quality can decrease due to more quantity needed by populations.But the truth is that monocultures and phytodrugs damages go through soil empoisoning the whole Earth,impacting on biodiversity.

The solution is to incentivate and promote a new generation of farmers able to use agro‑echological techniques:by combining quantity with quality,by respecting biodiversity,maximizing benefits for people and for our planet.

Global health right is so and is there,only if food right is included and moral engagement is an essential pillar of it.Then some considerations follow:

a.‑health emergency of chronical not transmissible diseases -where the role of pesticides,like glyphosate,is to solve since they impact both on elderly degenerative diseases both on fertility potential of young people,and also on congenital malformations on offspring;junk food can worsen this panel.Endocrine disruptors are cited as being 100.000 and they create damages interfering hormonal functions mainly in pediatrics ages,and also on fertile age with tumors or infertility.

b.‑planet health -only respecting our planet and his wellbeing at every living specie and soil levels,we can guarantee a right health also for human population.Biodiversity has always been in our food culture.On the contrary in 100 years 75% of species have disappear.This biodiversity reduction is related to monocultures and GMOs.Variety and biological food impact in positive way on environment,and on health too:better soil fertility,preservation of biomass,resilence;rich and not toxic food,increase of micronutrients,strenghtening of immunitary system and of microbiome,health regeneration.

c.‑costs of industrial foods -focus on chronic diseases due to incorrect food and nutrition,such as neuro‑degenerative diseases,cancer,diabetes,obesity,bpco,autism,infertility;with economic costs too,trillions of$ every disease.

d.‑what we have to do is to practice transiton toward local ecological diversified systems.It is due to apply nutritional education,starting from breastfeeding and lactaction,then with healthy weaning of babies,teaching and learning which diets are better.Then it is mandatory to organize food markets in smart ways so that more vegetables and less meat are there.Finally governements should collaborate with local producers,incentivating sustainable ways of production,passing from intensive monocultures to biological food systems and from linear extractive economy to supportive circular one.

Every strategy oriented to nutritional improvement,like also resolutive of malnutrition conditions,is to favor.

Right to food:all must be able to feed

According new statistics about Earth planet,1.2 billion people live in extreme poverty and 800 millions are undernourished.So it is essential to treat the right to food topic[10].

In 2020,in occasion of 16th october,world food day,commissioners Lenarcic and Urpilainen confirmed that European Union continues its engagement in fighting hunger in the World trying to solve the deep causes:there is a nutritional insecurity growing for lots of reasons,like climate changes and economic shocks,and EU is guaranteeing investments all over the world so to increase nutritional security,sustaining in 10 years more than 100 millions people.Even planetary sustainability is between community goals [11].

Hilal Elver,researcher and subscriber of Food for Health,justice doctor and PhD in Ankara University,is now researcher and teacher at UCLA,Los Angeles University,and also special rapporteur for United Nations and its Human Rights group,particularly right to food [12,13].

In her site she remembers like all human beings have the fundamental right to be free of hunger and to have access to healthy food,culturally appropriate.

She cites Human Rights Committee that in 1999 concluded that adequate right to food is realized when every single person have physical and economical access to food and means to get it.In 2000 Human Rights Board started to answer to need of an integrated approach so to promote food right.

Elver for 6 years until 2020 has been special rapporteur.

She remembers us 6 pillars to which referring:

a.1‑availability -food should be available starting from resources until the lands cultivation,until fishing,hunting,farming and breeding,like also in markets and shops

b.2‑accessibility -there must be economical and physical accessibility to food,we should can get food when we need it,even in far areas or for weaks

c.3‑adequacy -food must satisfy dietetic needs,according to people’s age,to life conditions,to health,occupation etc

d.4‑sustainability -so to protect even future generations.

Countries must guarantee both the respect of actual and existing accessibility and parallely they must assure that there is not deprivation of adequate food;also,they must assure vital rights like food safety.

Prof.Elver met in 2020 italian foreign minister Del Re in Farnesina palace [14],focusing on common goals to pursue and in order to evaluate the importance of agriculture on access and adequate nutrition,so as the access to land by youngs and vulnerables;finally the importance of soil respect thanks to the reduction of phytochemicals and limiting too the illicit activities in nutritonal system.In the same year she asked to Italy to insert the healthy food right in Constitution laws so to give a strong tool to protect citizens.

Moreover she told that school canteens should make prevale biological food,and we should reduce toxics in foods,parallely we could make more checks in illegal productions of chemicals.

The right to food is to refer to adequate and healthy food.Soup chickens and food banks should represent an extention of right to food instead of a charity example,a right to person as human being.

Elver is critic also on italian agricultural system [15],based on bipolarism between small producers and few big companies tending to press farmers that as local markets tend to succumb due also to supermarkets.She suggests protections for small farmers,and to favor biological method into Pac.

In the booklet“Against hungriness”it is important to remember that poverty has many faces:diabesity [10],chronical diseases due to malnutrition are part of it,and an healthy nutrition must be a right for everyone in many ways.It does exist complementarity between food security and food safety,different shades describing salubrity of food.Nutritional security involves choices about agricultural and economical politics.

Due to demographical growth,climate changes,unsafe commercial investements,particularly in poor countries and living in rural areas,individuals have limited possibilities of access to food.The solutions?Access to land,and biodiversity protection.It is necessary to increase agricultural production and we must get inspiration from what we learnt:intensive productions impoverished agriculture and reduced resources.On the contrary more variability of coltures increased locality resilience,respecting at the same time soils health.

Access to land:the property right of who lives in a country must be in favor of the pupulation so to permit productions recovery.Infact nowadays too,there are conflicts and wars in order to get the access to land;we should prevent them with ad hoc laws resepecting and promoting food security.

We should other than eating healthy,be engaged to promote the right to food,essential condition part of the human rights generally considered,also favoring agricultural development in inclusive way,sustaining rural families,and particularly promoting knowledge diffusion.

Eco friendly diets:food and planet

We imagine that animal based diets have more negative impact in echological terms:it is so,but agriculture too is destroying habitat and biodiversity,and is polluting rivers and oceans.Even intensive fishing is not sustainable and has disrupted marine ecosystems.

What do we intend with eco friendly diet and nutrition [16]? They include healthy foods from a nutritional point of view and with a low footprint talking about using soil and hydric sources necessary to the production of foods,with low emission of carbon and nitrogen.

We can cite some environmental indicators:

a.‑water footprint:liters of water/kg of product

b.‑carbon footprint:grams of CO2/kg of product

c.‑ecological footprint:area on which that food impacts(m2/kg)

d.‑waste disposal time.

We should take into consideration all these indicators.

However an eco friendly and sustainable diet must pay attention also to the conservation of biodiversity and of ecosistems,accessible for everyone and based on local foods.We should also reduce some phenomena like:pollution,deforestation,desertification,and climate changes.

Agriculture is origin of 1/3 of CO2 emissions released due to our human activities [17].This CO2is responsible of water acidification and a reduced pH makes O2lower.We have as consequences heat waves and global overheating with desertification and reduction of bees and impollinators.

In practice there is a reduction of biodiversity and a got‑worse animal nutrition,and the same for humans.

It is a fix point what was undersigned in Paris agreement in 2015,during climate conference:195 nations involved to counteract climate changes and what determines them (it would be necessary a similar agreement about food).

In order to measure footprint so to become more aware,we can simulate a shopping on WWF site:we will see how many CO2 kg and water m3,impacting on planet.Negative impact by:red meat,olive oil,coffee; positive impact (lower) by: tomatoes,legumes…particularly if seasonal.Our shopping,if aware,is a way to save the planet,ourselves,the health of whole humanity.It is infact true that food production chain is the second cause of pollution after energetic compartment.

Good impact,lower again:

a.‑fruit and vegetables,at least 500 gr per day

b.‑legumes and whole grains

c.‑fish one time per week

d.‑reduction of milk and dairy,since they are from animal origin

e.‑better choosing biological products

f.‑preferring seasonal products,in order to reduce emissions (due to intercontinental transports).

Chatham house rapport,promoted by United Nations,is based on the importance of reducing intensive agriculture and breeding.Agriculture is itself a menace for 86% of species at extintion risk,with incalculable damages to biodiversity [18‑20].

We should focus on vegetable prelent diets,and it is also necessary to drastically reduce nutritonal waste.We should create protect areas so to subtract part of lands to agricultural use,promoting as well policultures (opposed to monocultures) and supporting biodiversity.Jane Goodall,the ethologist studying chimpanzees in Africa,supported this report.

If we shifted from meat to legumes,42% of USA lands will become free.

A BioMed Central research is focused on similar ideas:the release of the greenhouse gas is not only due to economy+industry but also to not eco friendly diets.Every country has its own impact:USA at first place.But,dietetical guidelines should be more uniformed between all the countries,so to reduce negative impacts.

Mediterrenean diet,besides being a solution for longevity,is a valid strategy from an environmental point of view;infact it is 60% less negative toward other nutritional styles.

A consideration about food waste:17% of produced food is thrown away every year,more or less 900 millions of tons.In the homes 11%is wasted,more or less 79 kg per person.This is very negative also from climatic point of view:it corresponds to 9% of greenhouse gas.There is Food Waste Index,with which we can make evaluations toward programs of waste reduction.ONU created local intervention groups to elaborate focused interventions.

We can finally think to fruit and vegetables eliminated in production chain since they are not compliant to aesthetic canons:25% is thrown away and lost along selection,collection,storage,shipment,boxing[21].Then 9% is eliminated by supermarkets.At the end,19% more in our homes.Half of food is wasted only for aesthetical criteria or due to quality:these are quantities to reduce for sure since this food could feed planet.

Conclusive perspectives

World food day has been a start for reflecting on some themes related to food,nutrition,global sustainability.An healthy diet is part of a whole that we all must follow not only for an aesthetic reason,but also for a better quality of life.

We analized models of diet coming from past and they are consolidated over time and improved over centuries:mediterrenean diet,so important for people living in these countries,but also principles of traditional chinese medicine,to which we can inspire in case we want integrate our nutritional health or to elaborate ad hoc diets,if there are organ/energy deficits.

Also nutritional models The China Study and GIFT diet are a valid reference to live in health.

Focusing on mechanisms determining hungriness is a way to be more aware:reward coming from food is part of diet and cannot be a reason to overfeed;it is a regulatory system to well ponder in our nutritional choices.

The essential concepts of right to food and eco friendly diets for planet are important for food culture and nutrition.Food is not only diet,is also safeguard of Earth populations about nutrients and health references,where food waste is a paradigma to prevent.

Michelle Obama,recently interviewed on Vanity Fair [22],remembers us that nutrition and healthy food is basis for every country development.According to ex first lady food is not only nutrient but can be seen as political parameter:more a country is adequate more high is the quality of food produced for local communities,and families can have access to healthy food,given the priority to children.

I would conclude with the famous Hyppocrates quote,who from ancient Greece divulgated “let food be your medicine and medicine be your foood”:a better nutritional awareness is necessary for us and for all future generations for a global health and wellbeing.