Med-index: a food product labeling system to promote adherence to the mediterranean diet encouraging producers to make healthier and more sustainable food products Un sistema di etichettatura dei prodotti alimentari per promuovere l'adesione alla dieta mediterranea incoraggiando i produttori a realizzare prodotti alimentari più sani e sostenibili

Main Article Content

Maria Lisa Clodoveo
Elvira Tarsitano
Carlo Sabbà
Loreto Gesualdo
Filomena Corbo

Keywords

disease prevention, front-of-pack nutrition label, healthy eating choices, Mediterranean diet, sustainable production

Abstract

Consumers are increasingly demanding transparency in food labeling as they want more and better information about what they are eating and where their food comes from. Several food indexes have been developed in the last decades to promote healthy eating with the aim of reducing certain diseases such as obesity, cancer, and diabetes. The Mediterranean diet is known to be one of the healthiest dietary patterns, and it is associated with a lower incidence of mortality from all-causes, and it is also related to a lower incidence of cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, certain types of cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases; however, a comprehensive index that quantifies the Mediteraneaness of foods is still missing. The real European challenge is to identify a uniform labeling system for the whole of Europe which promotes a healthy lifestyle. This article describes the development of the Mediterranean Index (MI), which aims to accurately measure the degree of food Mediterraneaness. The MI simultaneously integrates nutritional and sustainability characteristics of foods. The MI may provide an objective basis for the use of the “Mediterraneaness” label on food products, which can ultimately promote adherence to the Mediterranean diet encouraging producers to make healthier and more sustainable food products. Growing consumer concern toward health foods for better health can be a factor useful to promote the applicability of the precision nutrition principles by means of conscious choice.

Abstract 968 | PDF Downloads 686 HTML Downloads 582 XML Downloads 196

References

Amirante, P., Clodoveo, M.L., Leone, A., Tamborrino, A. and Patel, V.B., 2010a. Influence of different centrifugal extraction systems on antioxidant content and stability of virgin olive oil. In: Olives and olive oil in health and disease prevention. Academic Press, pp. 85–93.

Amirante, P., Clodoveo, M.L., Tamborrino, A., Leone, A. and Dugo, G., 2008. Oxygen concentration control during olive oil extraction process: a new system to emphasize the organoleptic and healthy properties of virgin olive oil. Acta Horticulturae 949: 473–480. 10.17660/ActaHortic.2012.949.70

Amirante, P., Clodoveo, M.L., Tamborrino, A., Leone, A. and Paice, A.G., 2010b. Influence of the crushing system: phenol content in virgin olive oil produced from whole and de-stoned pastes. In: Olives and olive oil in health and disease prevention. Academic Press, pp. 69–76.

Chakrabarti, S., Guha, S. and Majumder K., 2018. Food-derived bioactive peptides in human health: challenges and opportunities. Nutrients 10(11): 1738. 10.3390/nu10111738

Chantal, J., Hercberg, S. and World Health Organization, 2017. Development of a new front-of-pack nutrition label in France: the five-colour nutri-score. Public Health Panorama 3(4): 712–725.

Clodoveo, M.L., Di Lorenzo, L., Sabbă, C., Moschetta, A., Gesualdo, L. & Corbo, F., 2020. The emerging discipline of precision cooking: a suitable tool for the precision nutrition. Int J Food Sci Nutr 71(4): 525–528. 10.1080/09637486.2019.1679726

de Vries, H.J., 2020. Addressing sustainability in education about standardization – lessons from the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. In: Sustainable development. Springer, Cham, pp. 57–75.

Dernini, S. and Berry, E.M., 2015. Mediterranean diet: from a healthy diet to a sustainable dietary pattern. Front Nutr 2: 15. 10.3389/fnut.2015.00015

European Economic and Social Committee, 2019. ECO/481 Annual Growth Survey 2019. OPINION European Economic and Social Committee. Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Central Bank, the European Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions and the European Investment Bank –Annual Growth Survey 2019: For a stronger Europe in the face of global uncertainty [COM(2018) 770 final] Rapporteur: Anne DEMELENNE. [European Economic and Social Committee. ECO/481, 2019].

Frasca, D., Blomberg, B.B. and Paganelli, R., 2017. Aging, obesity, and inflammatory age-related diseases. Front Immunol 8: 1745. 10.3389/fimmu.2017.01745

Garrido-Miguel, M., Oliveira, A., Cavero-Redondo, I., Álvarez-Bueno, C., Pozuelo-Carrascosa, D.P., Soriano-Cano, A., et al., 2019. Prevalence of overweight and obesity among European preschool children: a systematic review and meta-regression by food group consumption. Nutrients 11(7): 1698. 10.3390/nu11071698

Haines, A. and Scheelbeek, P., 2020. European green deal: a major opportunity for health improvement. Lancet 395(10233): 1327–1329. 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30109-4

Hill, J.O., Wyatt, H.R. and Peters, J.C., 2012. Energy balance and obesity. Circulation 126(1): 126–132. 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.111.087213

Joint WHO/FAO Expert Consultation, 2003. Diet, nutrition and the prevention of chronic diseases. World Health Organ Tech Rep Ser 916(i–viii): 1–149.

Julia, C. and Hercberg, S., 2018. Big food’s opposition to the French nutri-score front-of-pack labeling warrants a global reaction. Am J Public Health 108(3): 318–320. 10.2105/AJPH.2017.304284

Lammi, C., Bellumori, M., Cecchi, L., Bartolomei, M., Bollati, C., Clodoveo, M.L., et al., 2020. Extra virgin olive oil phenol extracts exert hypocholesterolemic effects through the modulation of the LDLR pathway: in vitro and cellular mechanism of action elucidation. Nutrients 12(6): 1723. 10.3390/nu12061723

Littlewood, J.A., Lourenço, S., Iversen, C.L., Hansen, G.L. Menu labelling is effective in reducing energy ordered and consumed: a systematic review and meta-analysis of recent studies. Public Health Nutr 19(12): 2106–2121. 10.1017/S1368980015003468

Lorenzoni, G., Di Benedetto, R., Silano, M. and Gregori, D., 2021. What is the nutritional composition of ultra-processed food marketed in Italy? Nutrients 13(7): 2364. 10.3390/nu13072364

Machín, L., Aschemann-Witzel, J., Curutchet, M.R., Giménez, A. and Ares, G., 2018. Does front-of-pack nutrition information improve consumer ability to make healthful choices? Performance of warnings and the traffic light system in a simulated shopping experiment. Appetite 121: 55–62. 10.1016/j.appet.2017.10.037

Mallamaci, R., Budriesi, R., Clodoveo, M.L., Biotti, G., Micucci, M., Ragusa, A., et al. Olive tree in circular economy as a source of secondary metabolites active for human and animal health beyond oxidative stress and inflammation. Molecules 26(4): 1072. 10.3390/molecules26041072

Martínez-González, M.A., Salas-Salvadó, J., Estruch, R., Corella, D., Fitó, M., Ros E., et al., 2015. Benefits of the Mediterranean diet: insights from the PREDIMED study. Prog Cardiovasc Dis 58(1): 50–60. 10.1016/j.pcad.2015.04.003

Medina, F.X., 2019. From healthy to sustainable: transforming the concept of the mediterranean diet from health to sustainability through culture. In: Collinson, P., Young, I., Antal, L. and Macbeth, H. (eds.), Food and sustainability in the twenty-first century: Cross-disciplinary perspectives. Berghahn Books, New York and Oxford, pp. 57–69.

Medina, F.X., 2021. Towards a construction of the Mediterranean diet? The building of a concept between health, sustainability and culture. Food Ethics 6(1): 1–10. 10.1007/s41055-020-00083-4

Mhurchu, C.N., Eyles, H. and Choi, Y.H., 2017. Effects of a voluntary front-of-pack nutrition labelling system on packaged food reformulation: the health star rating system in New Zealand. Nutrients 9(8): 918. 10.3390/nu9080918

Narciso, A. and Fonte, M., 2021. Making farm-to-fork front-of-the-pack: labelling a sustainable European diet. Int J Sociol Agricult Food 27(1): 54–70.

Nelson, M.E., Hamm, M.W., Hu, F.B., Abrams, S.A. and Griffin, T.S., 2016. Alignment of healthy dietary patterns and environmental sustainability: a systematic review. Adv Nutr 7(6): 1005–1025. 10.3945/an.116.012567

Piaggi, P., 2019. Metabolic determinants of weight gain in humans. Obesity 27(5): 691–699. 10.1002/oby.22456

Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 December 2006 on nutrition and health claims made on foods. 2006. Official Journal of the European Union L404: 9–25.

Rescigno, T., Micolucci, L., Tecce, M.F. and Capasso, A., 2017. Bioactive nutrients and nutrigenomics in age-related diseases. Molecules 22(1): 105. 10.3390/molecules22010105

Romieu, I., Dossus, L., Barquera, S., Blottière, H.M., Franks, P.W., Gunter, M., et al. Energy balance and obesity: what are the main drivers? Cancer Causes Control 28(3): 247–258. 10.1007/s10552-017-0869-z

Roselli, L., Clodoveo, M.L., Corbo, F. and De Gennaro, B., 2017. Are health claims a useful tool to segment the category of extra-virgin olive oil? Threats and opportunities for the Italian olive oil supply chain. Trends Food Sci Technol 68: 176–181. 10.1016/j.tifs.2017.08.008

Serra-Majem, L., Tomaino, L., Dernini, S., Berry, E.M., Lairon, D., Ngo de la Cruz, J., et al. Updating the Mediterranean diet pyramid towards sustainability: focus on environmental concerns. Int J Environ Res Public Health 17(23): 8758. 10.3390/ijerph17238758

Sikora, A., 2021. European green deal–legal and financial challenges of the climate change. ERA Forum 21(4): 681–697. 10.1007/s12027-020-00637-3

Tarsitano, E., Calvano, G., Sinibaldi, P. and Colao, M., 2018. Urban environmental education and sustainability in Lama Balice regional natural park. Int J Res Educ Stud 4: 10.

Tarsitano, E., Rosa, A.G., Posca, C., Petruzzi, G., Mundo, M. and Colao, M., 2020. A sustainable urban regeneration project to protect biodiversity. Urban Ecosyst 24(1): 1–18. 10.1007/s11252-020-01084-1

Toro-Martín, D., Arsenault, B.J., Després, J.P. and Vohl, M.C., 2017. Precision nutrition: a review of personalized nutritional approaches for the prevention and management of metabolic syndrome. Nutrients 9(8): 913. 10.3390/nu9080913

Vamanu, E. and Gatea, F., 2020. Correlations between microbiota bioactivity and bioavailability of functional compounds: a mini-review. Biomedicines 8(2): 39. 10.3390/biomedicines8020039

van der Bend, D.L. and Lissner, L., 2019. Differences and similarities between front-of-pack nutrition labels in Europe: a comparison of functional and visual aspects. Nutrients 11(3): 626. 10.3390/nu11030626