The professor in Preventive Medicine and rector of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria explains that factors such as sustainability and sociability must be integrated when it comes to causing a necessary change in the dietary model.
In the Canary Islands we have all the necessary instruments to have a balanced diet and a much healthier population. But the reality is very different. Lluis Serra, professor of Preventive Medicine at the University of Las Palmas (an institution of which he is also rector) pointed out that, despite the potential of our fields and seas to provide us with a healthy and sustainable diet, the Canary Islands are one of the regions with the greatest prevalence of health problems such as obesity; an issue with serious consequences in the medium and long term that is also reflected in the increase in the incidence of multiple diseases. “The majority of preventable deaths around the world have to do with dietary problems,” he says. And to give an example of what happens with our 'Westernized diet' model (where ultra-processed industrial foods, transgenic vegetables and meat and dairy products from macro farms predominate), he pointed out a study carried out between 1982 and 2012 among women in their first months of pregnancy cared for at the Maternal Hospital in Las Palmas. Among low-income women, the obesity rate rose from 9 to 27%, while among high-income women the jump was much smaller: from 3 to 9%. The data is brutal. And they have to do with a food production model that excludes a good part of the population.
The role of the school as a transmitter of values is fundamental. And that is why in the I Reeducation Forum; New Challenges, New Paradigms, they wanted to make room for 'food education' And that's why the rector of the ULPCG came to Expomeloneras. To talk about how to eat well; but from a different point of view. “We are used to talking about the food pyramid but we have to talk about the food system.” It is a new concept that has to do with sustainability criteria and that not only takes into account the impact of food on human health. It is also about the way food is produced and takes into account the health of ecosystems and the health and well-being of animals. Serra spoke of ethical values and responsibility as an integral part of that Mediterranean Diet that "is without a doubt the best and healthiest in the world."
But despite being a true cultural treasure, it is at risk of disappearance due to the pressure of that Westernized diet. “The Mediterranean Diet does not have any type of advertising; But you find out in all the media when a fast food restaurant opens in any of our towns,” he ironically stated. For Lluis Serra, the ideal diet not only has to be healthy. “It also has to be sustainable.” “Today we have a system in which traditional cuisine is subordinated to multi-processed products. The need to return to our origins is imposed. You don't have to invent anything at all. We just have to go back to eating what our parents and grandparents ate,” he said.
But the ULPGC professor also introduced ethics into the healthy eating equation. Ethics in matters such as animal welfare or environmental care. “It is very good to eat an avocado every day and upload it to Instagram, but you have to think that a field of avocados consumes almost a thousand times the same water as a field of oranges. And oranges are very healthy.” Serra put some hard data on the table. Like the one that shows that a kilo of beef requires 13.000 liters of water compared to the 50 that a kilo of legumes requires. “We are incapable of changing the way we eat, but we are incapable of taking four or five pills a day to improve our health. And it would be enough to eat better,” he stated.
The rector added that a healthy diet is also consistent with our landscape and our culture and pointed out that eating seasonal and local foods is not only healthy, but is also a guarantee of safeguarding our landscapes and our biodiversity.
