The Mediterranean Diet from Ancel Keys to the UNESCO Cultural Heritage. A Pattern of Sustainable Development between Myth and Reality

This paper deals with the Mediterranean Diet as a potential tool for increasing knowledge and promoting a sustainable development especially in least developed and developing regions. The confirmation of the MD as an Intangible Heritage of Humanity, recognized by UNESCO in 2010, is producing a significant social effect in the seven nations and communities involved. In addition in 2012 the MD has been included by the FAO at the top of the list of the most sustainable diets in the planet. The double recognition of this life style is generating a new approach to this cultural heritage by the stakeholders who are progressively recognizing that it may become a new tool to develop green economy and eco-tourism. To this end the author analyses the real and mythological genealogy of the MD in order to bring out its cultural, economic and social potentiality.