Carmela Cotrone
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One of my strongest memories connected to the Mediterranean Diet is not a single dish, but the experience of rural and coastal territories that I visited during these years of project, where food, landscape and community life are deeply connected: olive groves, small farms, local markets, family-run restaurants, fishermen’s villages and inland areas where recipes still depend on seasonality, biodiversity and local knowledge. In these places, eating becomes a way to understand the territory and the people who keep it alive.
For me, responsible Mediterranean tourism means choosing local producers, small restaurants, community-based experiences and seasonal food chains, rather than consuming the territory only as a destination. It also means respecting rural communities, supporting family farming, valuing traditional know-how and avoiding forms of tourism that standardise local cultures.
This is also one of the key ambitions of the MDG network: to improve local awareness, help local communities to connect Mediterranean Diet values with sustainable tourism, digital tools and territorial cooperation, helping travellers discover authentic local experiences while strengthening the communities, ecosystems and food systems behind them. The Mediterranean Diet can become a bridge between heritage, responsible travel and transition toward a green and innovative local development, if we experience it with care and awareness.
Two Mediterranean territories that, in my view, strongly embody this living heritage are Crete and Cilento.
In Crete, the Mediterranean Diet is not only a nutritional model, but a social practice rooted in hospitality, sharing, seasonality and the strong relationship between rural communities, local products and everyday conviviality. The table is a place where food, family ties, village life and landscape come together.
Cilento, in Southern Italy, has a very special symbolic value as one of the places historically linked to the study and recognition of the Mediterranean Diet. Here too, the meal is much more than a recipe: it is a collective ritual connected to local identity, intergenerational knowledge, agricultural traditions and a slower, community-based way of living.
For these reasons, both Crete and Cilento could play an important role in the future MDG network, especially in initiatives focused on cultural heritage, community practices, sustainable local development and the transmission of Mediterranean Diet values to new generations.
For me, the most important benefit of the MD is long-term healthy aging, because the MD healthy food brings together many dimensions: cardiovascular protection, metabolic balance, daily energy, and quality of life over time.
The biggest challenge is not really using more olive oil or choosing healthy fats; it is reducing ultra-processed foods when daily routines are fast, work-heavy, and often shaped by convenience. The shift requires planning more than willpower.
One small change that really helps is building meals around simple Mediterranean staples: vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nuts, fish when possible, and extra virgin olive oil as the main fat. Even small swaps, like replacing packaged snacks with fruit and nuts or adding legumes a few times per week, can make healthy eating feel practical and sustainable.
Carmela
