URCA (Usi e Ricette: il Cibo Abruzzese/habits and recipes: food from Abruzzo)
Food composition analysis of traditional dishes could help identify populations’ dietary patterns and association with observed diseases. To deal with these purposes, traditional recipes should be collected from the local population, elaborated and computed in micro and macronutrients composition and allergen content. This helps to highlight health impact of traditional dishes and allows to promote more sustainable lifestyle and preserve biodiversity through consciousness food choices.
Cross-border/international
Italy
Spain
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Italy: Abruzzo region, municipality of Chieti (CH)
Spain: Cataluna region, municipality of Tarragona (TAR)
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
As individual(s) in partnership with organisation(s)
First name: Carmen Last name: Santangelo Gender: Female Please describe the type of organization(s) you work in partnership with: University "G. D'Annunzio", Chieti (Italy)
Italian Research Centre for Food and Nutrition, Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA), Rome (Italy)
Cooking School ReD Academy, Treglio (Italy)
University "Rovira i Virgili", Tarragona (Spain)
Age: 28 Please attach a copy of your national ID/residence card:
By ticking this box, I certify that the information regarding my age is factually correct. : Yes Nationality: Italy Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Italy; Via Aquilonia n 78/B Town: Agnone (IS) Postal code: 86081 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 334 136 4015 E-mail:carmen.santangelo@unich.it
Traditional cuisine is worldwide the expression of the national culture and tradition heritage, handed down from the elderly to the new generations. In the era of excessive industrialization and global challenges, it is highlighted the need to promote strategy and behaviors to keep safe the environment and human health. In this sense, exploring traditional cuisine and dietary pattern of a targeted population could help to identify potential association between dietary habits and health disease. Elderly people are more used to consume familiar dishes, whose simple-cooking and sensory aspects remind them of their childhood experiences, but also because they are part of a lifelong dietary habit. The available national data about the wide range of existing regional recipes are still limited, and there is scarce evidence about the allergen content and the environmental impact of traditional dishes. The present study proposes to optimize a simple, economic, and reproducible method that could be widely used at different levels for consumers’ needs. Thus, the aim is to evaluate the dietary pattern of the local population, disseminate traditional heritage, enrich Food Composition Database, and inform people about possible risks of their habits. Starting from Abruzzo, a region in the centre of Italy, the project involves 1) identification of regional dishes; 2) collection of the recipes’ data trough phone interviews with the local elderly; 3) elaboration of the traditional dishes by a professional cooking school; 4) estimate of the dishes’ nutritional content comparing with national dietary guidelines, and their allergen content; 5) enrichment of the Italian compiled National Food Composition Database (FCDB); 6) calculation of health indices as the Cholesterol and Saturated fat Index (CSI) and the Mediterranean Adequacy Index (MAI); 7) assessment of the dishes’ environmental sustainability; 8) dissemination of results by accessible and graphically sound recipes cards.
Traditional recipes
Heritage
Food composition database
Dietary Reference Values
Sustainability
Definition of a set of guiding principles for sustainable diets is urgently needed to address food and nutrition security as well as sustainability along the whole food chain. Sustainable diets, which are protective and respectful of biodiversity and ecosystems with their low environmental impact, culturally acceptable, accessible, economically fair and affordable, are central for sustainable development. Including traditional and local foods, with their many nutritionally rich species and varieties, could help to reduce water consumption and greenhouse gas emission throughout the entire food chain. It is necessary engage stakeholders in the fields of food production, nutrition and health, environment and directly include consumers.
For these reasons, our purpose is to adopt strategies to promote knowledge and consciousness about tradition and nutritional habits development of new sustainable food production and consumption models. In fact, already in 2009, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) declared that it “will actively encourage the consumption of foods, particularly those available locally, that contribute to diversified and balanced diets, as the best means of addressing micronutrient deficiencies and other forms of malnutrition, especially among vulnerable groups”.
In our project, environmental sustainability was computed by the Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA). Data in terms of Carbon footprint, which represents Greenhouse Gas Emission (GHGE) responsible for climate change and expressed as Kg CO2-equivalent (Kg CO2-eq), were obtained from the study “A multilevel carbon and water footprint dataset of food commodities” (Petersson et al., 2021), taking into account the assessment of foodstuffs’ full life cycle (LCA, Life Cycle Assessment) up to the final product, an objective assessment methodology to detect energy and environmental loads.
Healthy ageing represents one of the goals to achieve for sustainable development. Today, approximately 9% of the European population is older than 65 years. Older adults and elderly in general are at high risk of chronic diseases. Active lifestyle and good nutrition, such as Mediterranean Diet, across the lifespan can help to mitigate some of these risks, and support people making improvements in their ageing. Use these complete and integrated information to actively engage people, throughout project that valorize these concepts, is a consistent approach to these global challenges and a feasible way to promote healthy ageing. Elderly people are those who better make linkage with land and tradition, and it is essential learning from them about their habits and custom, and the healthfulness of local food products and popular culinary practices. A careful study of nutritional habits by investigating traditional recipes and food choices, can help elderly to remember their history and customs through the storytelling and the recall of memories triggered from food, strengthening connection with their origin, and make more consciousness about the health impact of their behavior. The positive emotions evoked by mingling of flavors and memories for elderly and new concept of nourishment for young will create a new food lifestyle that aims to decline the traditional dishes and food of Italian regions in a new concept of “Dolce Vita” lifestyle based on healthy and sustainable nourishment for mind and body, according to needs of axis gut-brain and hedonistic aspects.
To improve the present health scenario, accounting for nutrition, culture and tradition, equity, well-being and healthy ageing, biodiversity, a key role is represented by the inclusion of elderly people in the whole process, from the first steps of data collection to the last steps of education about appropriate food choices. In our project, this concept is explained by using recipe cards accessible for people, conceptualized and designed in order to give information about nutritional composition of main traditional dishes, nutritional value and achievement of dietary guidelines, environmental impact, and allergen content. In this way, people can learn from their habits and improve consciousness behaviors, thus they could remain independent and connected across generations. The traditional dishes representative cards are accessibility and affordability for all, from village doctor to nutritionist, from the village major to the Healthy Minister, from nephew to grandmothers because they are clear and informative designed, useful for daily use as well as for scientific purpose.
Published cards are publicly available at https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.27850.44484/1.
At the present time, there is the need to promote new strategies to accommodate population needs and well-being that are expressions of society well-being. Dietary change in urban areas, fitting western model in terms of nutritional and environmental aspects, are occurring also in rural communities. During old age, because of retirement, solitude and less autonomy, dietary practice become more unstable. To go back to more sustainable and healthier dietary model, older generations must be primary actors, supporting cultural evolution by horizontal transmission in peer, and vertical transmission to new generations, of traditional heritage. It is crucial to 1) hand down traditional habits and behavior by oral way and formalize it in writing, to lead better consumer’s awareness of nutritional messages, 2) promote healthy aspect, and 3) highlight harmful aspect of food choices. This could allow to adapt to the society development with better consciousness and to achieve healthy ageing and environmental care goals. Disseminating clear and simple information to the elderly and general population, written and shown in pictures, supports the conservation and valorization of traditional and local products, which are more sustainable and respectful of biodiversity while leading to adopt healthier behaviors.
Our project engages local and regional institution in the private and public field. The study was designed by the University G. D’ Annunzio (Chieti, Italy, by me Carmen Santangelo, with my supervisors Danilo Bondi and Tiziana Pietrangelo); in addition to the already mentioned active engaging of local elderly population for the collection of the recipes’ data by phone interview, elaboration of the traditional dishes was performed by a professional cooking school, named ReD Academy, that allows the weighing of the ingredients before, during and after the different cooking steps. The obtained ingredients’ data were analyzed in terms of micro and macronutrients and environmental impact by the Italian Research Centre for Food and Nutrition, Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA), supervised by Minister for Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forests. The foreign institution, i.e. University Rovira i Virgili (Tarragona, Spain), participates in the development of the concept to assess the allergen content of the traditional recipes through a web based app designed by them.
Our project supports health care linking: scientific aspect as nutritional values and food security in terms of allergen content of traditional recipes, and impact on public health and diseases prevention; professional aspects such as recipes definition and elaboration by professional academy; digital skills both for nutrient calculation and allergen content assessment, and in particular digital design of recipes card; public engagement in the entire process, starting from elderly interview until recipes card dissemination. All of these aspects interact in a mutual process that leads to increase knowledge and dissemination of traditional recipes, including them in the Italian compiled Food Composition Database (FCDB) for observational studies.
Traditional recipes are an important socio-cultural food heritage. Assessment of nutritional profile of regional dishes allows providing a picture of the dietetic pattern of a population and its association with health effects. This data links local heritage and habits with online instruments such as Food Composition Database.
Making awareness directly engaging consumers could lead to healthy choice with positive health and environmental impact, and can contribute to make local cuisine value flourish.
The present study optimizes a simple, economic, and reproducible method that could be widely used at a national level for consumers’ needs. Beginning from regional entities, it is possible to replicate the data collection, dishes elaboration and final results computation and dissemination to national scene and foreign contest, reaching different countries and target population, from old to young generations discovering the value of history and tradition. Apply these concepts give the possibility to study not only dietary pattern of Mediterranean areas, but potentially traditional aspect of food choices also far from healthy diet models, and in these sense could help disseminate better practice and improve habits linked to tradition. Therefore, our project is inherently replicable and scalable. More details are publicy available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfca.2022.104797.
Making progress in the field of Global Health, mainly tracking environmental and public health at local level, is a key point to counteracts loss of biodiversity and health conditions related to the living environment. Promote more sustainable and healthful lifestyle is advisable to extend lifespan and quality of life. Different inputs provide a whole views and implement educational strategies that are accessible and more effective in the long term than information campaign limited to defined time. This contributes to 1) encourage the consumption of local products, 2) protect food and nature biodiversity, 3) help local economy and 4) help consumers in food choices to health condition prevention headed to healthy ageing.
