The industrial food system pushes towards genetic uniformity, but cooking dishes that respect agrobiodiversity produces greater benefits for a healthy diet
a recipe that can count over 40 ingredients. The Teramo virtues, a dish from Abruzzo, includes many types of legumes, at least 17 vegetables as well as perfumes and aromas, various types of pasta, meats. Despite its ancient origins, today we would define it as a dish that respects the principle ofagrobiodiversitya term used by FAO to indicate the variety and variability of animals, plants and microorganisms important for food and agriculture.
Try the challenge
Cooking while respecting agrobiodiversity implies preparing dishes with a high degree of diversification of ingredients. In 2017 Stef de Haan, ofInternational Center for Tropical Agricultureand Karl Zimmerer, professor of Geography at Pennsylvania State University, asked from the pages of the magazine Nature Plants a great effort in favor of agrobiodiversity for the future given its importance for human health. Our body is a highly complex system that functions according to the principles of synergistic action: cells respond poorly to the “solo” effect of a single nutrient, while they respond in a specific and persistent manner to the orchestral effect of the nutrients that nature associates, in the right proportions, within foods. Lemon, for example, contains vitamin C whose effect is more effective than a synthetic vitamin C, precisely thanks to the global action of other substances present in the citrus fruit, observes Stefano Erzegovesi, nutritionist and psychiatrist, expert in preventive nutrition and food disorders. Even the microbiota loves biodiversity: to bring you closer to the world of plant biodiversity, in 7 days try to eat at least 30 different plant species including whole grains, legumes, fresh vegetables and fruit, nuts, herbs and spices. You will see that it is possible to win this “challenge”. A diet of this type encourages non-intensive cultivation and local agriculture with a lower environmental impact, it promotes “poorer” eating styles which lead to less consumption of animal products which have a strong impact on the climate and the environment.
The industry
Generally, agrobiodiversity is lowest in rich countries, where the industrial food system pushes towards genetic uniformity. As Professor Zimmerer reports, just three crops – rice, wheat and corn – provide more than half of the plant-based calories consumed in the world. This means that the poorly diversified diet, typical of the so-called western diet, poor in fruit and vegetables and is made more palatable through the “drugging” effect of salt, sugar and poor quality fats, says Erzegovesi.
Agrobiodiversity also pleases our intestinal microbiota. In a study that appeared on American Society for Microbiology Journals It emerged that people who eat more than 30 types of vegetables per week have a more diverse microbiota than those who consume up to 10 types. Food choices can have a great influence on the composition and function of the microbiota, explains Luca Masucci, associate professor at the Institute of Microbiology, head of the Molecular Diagnostics and Microbiota Manipulation Unit, Policlinico Gemelli in Rome. Bacteria feed on different nutrients just as there are different substances resulting from their metabolism, some of which protect our health. In a 2021 study on American Journal of Clinical Nutrition on 8,738 people, the result was that some bacteria that feed on fiber produce short-chain fatty acids which are important for their role also anti-inflammatory.
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February 18, 2024 (modified February 18, 2024 | 06:43)
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