A manifesto is a type of formal, persuasive, and public declaration used to convey opinions, decisions, intentions, and ideas.
The need to include in the public agenda the discussion of the determinants of adherence to this dietary pattern, and to include in this discussion other stakeholders who rarely have a voice, led us to write and publish a Manifesto outlining the need for a different vision of this concept and how to protect it.
Our society has been changing rapidly in recent decades. This means that protecting the "Mediterranean Diet" cannot simply be about preserving fidelity to a model historically mapped by Ancel Keyes in the 1960s (a preservation model that clearly failed in Portugal and the rest of the Mediterranean world), but needs to be reinterpreted without distorting the foundations of this way of eating. This is the central challenge for those involved in preserving this cultural and intangible heritage of humanity.
The ten theses that constitute this Manifesto were agreed upon after a broad bibliographic review and discussion among the authors, who were involved in the Portuguese candidacy of the Mediterranean Diet as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2013 and subsequently in governmental and regional initiatives for the preservation of the Mediterranean Diet, representing the Ministry of Health, the Tavira City Council, and UNESCO. In other words, it presents a vision that blends perspectives on health, culture, and sociology. The original version of the manifesto was published on October 12, 2018. The Manifesto is now published in “Pensar Nutrição” in English and in three other languages representative of the European side of the Mediterranean basin, namely Spanish, Italian, and Greek. Additionally, we present this introductory text which aims to briefly explain the main arguments and justifications for the existence of the Manifesto.
The Mediterranean way of eating, first mapped in Crete in the early 1950s by epidemiologist Leland Allbaugh at the request of the Greek government and under the auspices of the Rockefeller Foundation, and later continued by Ancel Keys, is now internationally known as the “Mediterranean Diet” (1, 2). It is certainly the most studied dietary pattern in the world and a recognized promoter of health . Unfortunately, this dietary model, developed and perfected over more than 8000 years in the Mediterranean basin, adapted to the climate, geography, and the animals and plants that settled there, capable of combining environmental protection with health and pleasure at the table, is now far from the Portuguese diet. Data from the latest National Food Survey (IAN-AF), in which adherence to the Mediterranean Diet was estimated for the Portuguese population using the Mediterranean Diet Score, revealed that only 18% of the population have high levels of adherence to this dietary pattern.
To protect this type of cultural heritage, UNESCO adopted the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage which aims to protect heritage properties of outstanding universal value. Intangible cultural heritage, according to the Convention, is considered to be “(...) the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge and skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artifacts and cultural spaces associated therewith – that communities, groups and, where appropriate, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage. This intangible cultural heritage, transmitted from generation to generation, is constantly recreated by communities and groups in response to their environment, their interaction with nature and their history, instilling in them a sense of identity and continuity, thus contributing to the promotion of respect for cultural diversity and human creativity.” It is, therefore, this intangible cultural heritage that UNESCO intends to safeguard, providing, among other measures, that each State should draw up inventories of this heritage.
In the case of the Mediterranean Diet, declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO on December 4, 2013, seven states and their respective representative communities with millennia-old Mediterranean cultures were involved in this transnational candidacy: Portugal (Tavira), Cyprus (Agros), Croatia (Hvar and Brac), Greece (Koroni), Spain (Soria), Italy (Cilento), and Morocco (Chefchaouen). The inscription of the Mediterranean Diet by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) of Humanity was approved unanimously , without recommendations, and the candidacy was considered exemplary by the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of ICH. This represented a three-year project, carried out with great scientific and technical rigor and practically without cost to the Portuguese State, considering the work of the multidisciplinary group, UNESCO, and the Tavira municipality, which led a large part of the process. In 2014, the Monitoring Group for the Preservation and Dissemination of the Mediterranean Diet (GADM) was created as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity through Resolution of the Council of Ministers (RCM) No. 71/2014, of November 13, with the mission of “Preserving and disseminating the Mediterranean Diet (MD) in Portugal; as well as monitoring the national implementation of the Safeguarding Plan proposed in the MD's application to the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)”. The same Resolution of the Council of Ministers also established, as indeed happened, that the GADM's mission would be considered concluded on December 31, 2017. In 2019, the Promoting Council for the Safeguarding and Promotion of the Mediterranean Diet (CDDM) was created through Order No. 1939/2019.
To preserve this food model, safeguarding plans tend to emphasize the identification, research, and documentation of local food patterns; their preservation and protection; and their promotion, appreciation, and transmission through formal and non-formal education. However, these preservation strategies tend to focus part of their activity on the protection and promotion of food products and associated production practices, forgetting that safeguarding this way of life also involves discussing the determinants that erode the possibility of maintaining and affirming this food model.
In the national context, the determinants of this low adherence to the Dietary Diet are most likely related to the economic and social costs of practicing this dietary pattern. That is, this dietary pattern requires technical knowledge and time for shopping, cooking, and mealtimes; it necessitates the purchase of fresh and less processed products; it requires the availability of certain foods that are scarcer in economically vulnerable areas; and it also requires a more equitable distribution of domestic activity between both members of the couple, something that is relatively easier when consumers have a higher level of education and economic capacity.
The Manifesto focuses on the issues of physical and economic accessibility to food, which can be central obstacles to this mode of food consumption; on access to knowledge as a determining factor in food choices and cooking methods; and on the social model in which the individual is integrated and which conditions their relationship with food. In maintaining biodiversity and through local and seasonal shopping that recenters the Mediterranean diet in the fight against climate change, and finally, in the concept of adaptation and exchange, very common in the Mediterranean world, embedded in a multicultural environment that has always been a hallmark of southern cultures.
The first part of the manifesto focuses precisely on the idea that adaptation to climate, new plants, new knowledge, and cultural influences is central to the Mediterranean world. “Preserving the Mediterranean is preserving biodiversity and cultural diversity.” Contrary to what one might think, defending this way of relating to food does not involve closing food borders, commercial protectionism, or fearing the loss of cultural identity. The Mediterranean Sea has always been a huge platform for the exchange of people and goods, one of the first and richest on a global scale. Preserving Mediterranean identity is preserving the diversity and authenticity of the different ways of producing, cooking, and being at the table that are very diverse along the 40th parallel. The Manifesto defends the idea of a food pattern constituted by various regional expressions, a consequence of microclimates, cultural, religious, and health factors.
In all these regional expressions of the “Mediterranean diet,” a refined and dense culinary knowledge, passed down from generation to generation, coexists with a great recognition of the importance of meals, of those who cook, and of conviviality around the table. All of them incorporate plant-based, fresh, and seasonal foods (olive oil, cereals, vegetables, fruit…), prepared in a unique and careful way, characteristic of a region where occasional abundance and chronic scarcity coexisted for centuries. This situation is changing more rapidly today than in the past. The Mediterranean dietary pattern has been evolving for over 8000 years, but the social and environmental conditions that shape it have accelerated in recent decades. In the second part of the Manifesto, we focus on these determinants of food consumption and how to try to evolve while maintaining what protects us.
The full text of the Manifesto and its versions in English, Spanish, Italian, and Greek can be read in an article published subsequently in “Pensar Nutrição”.
1) Crete, A Case Study of an Underdeveloped Area-By Leland G. Allbaugk. Princeton, NJ: Princeton, University Press, 1953. 572 pp.
2) Keys A, Karvonen MJ, Kimura N, Fidanza F, Taylor HL. Indexes of relative weight and obesity. J Chron Dis 1972;25:329-343.
Written by
Pedro Graça, Director of the Faculty of Nutrition and Food Sciences at the University of Porto