283pathologies. In terms of this last point, of particular
interest are the recent conclusions of a broad-rang-
ing EPIC European study which examined 4 85 044
adults over the course of nine years; EPIC showed
that increased adherence to the Mediterranean diet
is connected to a significant reduction (-33%) in the
risk of developing gastric cancer. Finally, it is inter-
esting to note that the scientific literature demon-
strates a positive impact of the Mediterranean diet
across all age brackets, starting from pre-natal to
childhood, adulthood and old age.
Its adoption is especially pronounced in the more
educated segments of the population (not Europe
only) which, moreover, it perceived consistency with
the current sociocultural trends, such as attention
to the welfare, the fight against obesity, the promotion
of typical products, the search for natural products
and natural attention to environmental protection.
The value of the Food Pyramid is twofold: first it is
an excellent summary of the main knowledge
gained from studies on medicine and nutrition, es-
sential for anyone who pays attention to their
health, second it is a powerful tool for consumer ed-
ucation, thanks also to its effective graphic form and
its undoubted simplicity, it plays an important pro-
motional role for the benefit of all those foods (fruits
and vegetables in particular) that are almost always
“unbranded” and not advertised by manufacturers.
- The environmental impact of food production
and Double Pyramids
The estimated environmental impact for each single
food item was calculated on the basis of the infor-
mation and public data which was measured
through the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA): an objec-
tive assessment methodology to detect energy and
environmental loads in a process (either an activity
or a service). This kind of assessment includes the
analysis of the whole value chain, starting from
growing or extraction practices, raw material pro-
cessing, manufacturing, packaging, transportation,
distribution, use, re-use, recycling and final dis-
posal. On the one hand, the LCA approach has the
advantage of offering a fairly objective and complete
assessment of the system; on the other hand, the
disadvantage lies in a difficult transmission of the
resulting complex outcome.Synthetic indicators are then used to fully understand
this outcome. These indicators are meant to pre-
serve the scientific basis of the analysis as much as
possible; they are selected according to the kind of
system analysed and must simply and correctly rep-
resent the relations with the main environmental
categories. The process analysis, more specifically
and focusing our attention on food production, high-
lights the main environmental loads: greenhouse
gas generation, the use of water resources and the
ability to regenerate local resources. According to
this input, and considering this work’s aim to pro-
vide valid results in an initial analysis, the following
environmental indicators were chosen:- Carbon Footprint, representing and identifying
greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate
change: measured through the CO2 equivalent. By
“Carbon Footprint” is meant the impact associated
with a product (or service) in terms of emission of
carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-equiv), calculated
throughout the entire life cycle of the system under
examination. It is a new term utilized to indicate the
so called Global Warming Potential (GWP) and, there-
fore, the potential greenhouse effect of a system calcu-
lated using the LCA – Life Cycle Assessment method.
In calculating the Carbon Footprint are always taken
into consideration the emissions of all greenhouse
gases, which are then converted into CO2 equiva-
lent using the international parameters set by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),
a body operating under the aegis of the United Na-
tions. Correctly calculating the Carbon Footprint of
a good or service must necessarily take into account
all the phases of the supply chain starting with the