“The Mediterranean diet is a healthy and sustainable food model, capable of countering the onset of important chronic non-communicable diseases. Pathologies – I quote diabetes – which have a significant impact not only on health, but also on health care costs: preventing them means fewer sick people in the future, and therefore more health, and more economic sustainability of the health system”. Thus the Minister of Health, Orazio Schillaci, speaking at the event ‘Maccarese: a sustainable breeding’, at the Maccarese farm, near Rome. “I will never get tired of repeating – he added – how important it is to favor the consumption of Italian and local quality products, within an Italian Mediterranean diet regimen that the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture strongly support, in the context of the promotion of healthy lifestyles”.
“Many studies show – continued the minister – that consumers are increasingly interested in knowing whether food products have been obtained in an ecological and socially responsible way. And there is a widespread perception that there is a link between wholesomeness, safety and quality of products and level of animal welfare. Of course, for the creation of a sustainable, fair, healthy and animal-friendly food system, everyone is called to do their part. As regards animal welfare, in the light of the new European regulations, in Italy in recent years, methods and systems have been renewed to make their protection more effective”, said Schillaci, recalling “the role of experimental zooprophylactic institutes, to raise the level of safety and the quality of the products”.
“Food safety not only protects consumers – the minister then underlined – but also the ‘health’ of the Italian economy which bases its success on the ability to transform the products of the agri-food chain into high quality food, to be placed also on markets of other countries”.
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