Healthy Eating: Science, Taste & Sustainability – A New Approach

“Taste is a fundamental lever for education, inclusion, and societal transformation. If ‘tasty’ is often perceived as the opposite of ‘healthy,’ reconciling the two is not only natural for me, it’s essential. It’s a way to revolutionize our approach to food and well-being—a challenge I’ve been pursuing for some time, stemming from the study and observation of my recipes: all made with simple, traditional ingredients, yet capable of evolving.” Niko Romito, chef and owner of the three-Michelin-starred restaurant “Reale” in Castel di Sangro, L’Aquila, Italy, explains the importance of bringing health to the table, always and in every context, including school cafeterias and hospital meals. He shares this mission with Valter Longo, professor of Biogerontology and Director of the Longevity Institute at USC (University of Southern California) — Davis School of Gerontology in Los Angeles, a leading center for research on aging and age-related diseases. Together, they have developed a document with the goal—according to Longo— “to promote a system that is first and foremost replicable and capable of having practical applications, starting with public catering, providing a foundation for a change in how we cook, think about, and eat food, uniting taste, health, sustainability, and accessibility. We must build a new approach to food that starts with scientific awareness and extends to the everyday plate.”

The five fundamental pillars of the manifesto
First and foremost, alongside personalized health approaches, is the freedom of choice, with dishes offering fewer potentially problematic ingredients and a greater focus on recipe development. “Professionals have an obligation to understand everything about those they serve: social background, needs, habits…” Longo emphasizes. “Then they must be able to take someone by the hand and accompany them for as long as it takes, experimenting—removing foods, adding others. I start by giving the body what it needs at that moment and then modify based on the responses. It’s a relatively simple practice that, however, is not followed by anyone except the team of doctors and nutritionists at my foundation’s centers.”

Regarding the pleasure-health connection—the second pillar of the manifesto—Romito explains: “This is a challenge we’ve been tackling for some time. As a chef, when I create a dish, I realize it first satisfies me from a creative and gustatory point of view. Then I notice that it also has valuable nutritional qualities for our well-being. It’s incredible how the research I’ve been conducting for years on the relationship between taste, beauty, and creativity corresponds to a healthy, digestible, and wholesome dish, free of unnecessary additions. In particular, vegetables contain essential nutraceuticals. I’ve identified a series of codes and transformations that can be transferred to more accessible catering models.” This emphasis on enjoyable, nutritious food is particularly relevant as public health officials seek ways to improve dietary habits.

Pleasure and health are not opposites, Longo echoes. “For example, pasta vajaneja—a recipe with 10 ingredients—that Salvatore Caruso ate in Molocchio helped him live to 110 years.” The third pillar of the manifesto centers on making good, healthy food accessible to all. According to Longo, “Recipes for health must be affordable and enter schools, hospitals, cafeterias, and homes. When we began speaking with American politicians, everyone repeated the need for fruit and vegetable stores. We were astonished. In reality, you can use excellent frozen products—just find the right retailers. Chains like Costco offer organic frozen foods at accessible prices, so everyone can benefit. Poverty should not exclude healthy eating: dried legumes, beans, and nuts cost much less than fresh fruit and often even less than a fast-food meal. The problem is nutritional education. In the Emirates, we are working on a program for obese and overweight children. Then, if you really want to change habits, you have to enter homes, understand family routines, and accompany people, as we are suggesting to the Minister of Health there, but also to the one in Campania, where, thanks to President De Luca and the assessors, and in collaboration with Dr. Bottino of the Betania Hospital, we are launching a nutritional program for students in schools.”

“We chefs—Romito adds—must also generate culture and be role models. Thanks to our visibility, we can truly influence how people view food. When I launched the ‘Nutritional Intelligence’ project, it seemed utopian: many wondered what someone like me (a Michelin-starred chef, ed. note) was doing with hospital cafeterias.
Yet today that research continues to evolve, and in January we will present a project supported by the Abruzzo region, in collaboration with local health authorities and universities. The goal: to integrate innovative techniques that revolutionize the idea of taste and health into the guidelines for school catering. And this is precisely the point: bringing expertise and vision where it’s needed. High-end restaurants are the Formula 1 of cuisine: this is where experimentation, techniques, and processes are born that can then become part of everyday catering. For example, ABS (an electronic safety system that prevents wheels from locking up during hard braking, ed. note) was born on the track and is now on all our cars. Similarly, excellent restaurants must be research laboratories useful for simpler and more accessible models. Collaboration with Valter has been crucial: thanks to his knowledge, I have developed a deep awareness of the effects of food on the body—effects that I then try to translate into dishes. We chefs, in short, must be able to embrace scientific knowledge and transform it into pleasure and health. That’s the true balance.”

Regarding tradition, research, and innovation—the fourth pillar—Longo is unwavering: “We can no longer think of the Mediterranean diet as it has been presented until now. Tradition alone is not enough to build a food model to propose to people. We must also learn from the diet of Okinawa, Loma Linda in California, clinical studies, those on animal models, and epidemiological studies.”

Finally, a reflection on what we don’t eat, based on the finding that a daily fast of about 12 hours can have a positive impact on the health of children and adults. “Today we know that a daily fast of about 12 hours can bring significant benefits. And it’s not a feat: just consider the simple interval between a dinner at a ‘human’ hour and breakfast the next morning. However, we also know that a 16-hour fast, especially if it involves skipping breakfast, is associated with a shorter, not longer, life. Therefore, science and scientists should play a much more central role in guiding doctors, nutritionists, and other lifestyle experts,” Longo concludes.

From theory to practice
Is this enough to ensure a healthy longevity? Not quite. Alongside the manifesto for the taste of longevity, Longo has also drawn up a decalogue that serves as a blueprint for the future. Here, in ten points, is what we should do every day.

1. Prefer a pescetarian diet. According to Longo, it’s important to “prioritize plant-based foods and include fish in the menu at most two or three times a week, avoiding those with high mercury content. And again: after 65-70 years, try to introduce more fish, white meat, fruit, and other animal foods, such as dairy and eggs, to prevent weight loss and muscle mass loss.”
2. Pay attention to protein. “It is advisable to consume about 0.8 g of protein per day per kilogram of body weight, being careful to increase this amount after 65-70 years as indicated in point one.”
3. Introduce unsaturated fats and complex carbohydrates into the diet. “Never miss good unsaturated fats, starting from olive oil to nuts and fish. And complex carbohydrates, such as those found in whole grains, legumes, and vegetables. Also, remember that fruit is a source of simple sugars that, for some people, can be a source of intolerance: it should therefore be chosen and consumed in moderation.”
4. Study the menu carefully: “The nutritional sources should be varied as much as possible so that the diet provides, in adequate quantities, proteins, essential fatty acids (omega-3, omega-6), minerals, vitamins, and even sugars that, in the right measure, are necessary for cells. Soon we will have a free app that will make this much easier for the public but also for nutritionists.”
5. Eat at the table of your ancestors. “Ideally, choose foods from the Longevity Diet that were present on the tables of grandparents and great-grandparents. Some examples? Prefer legumes: fava beans, lentils, chickpeas, lupins, walnuts, and almonds. Or cereals: barley, wheat, farro, millet, rye, and sorghum, also to be used for preparing soups. But be careful not to make big and quick changes to the diet that could lead to other problems.”
6. Replace lunch with a snack with less than 100 kcal (a few nuts, a fruit…). “This indication is for subjects who need to lose weight. In people with normal weight and not elevated abdominal circumference, it is possible to have three meals and one snack.”
7. Reduce the time window for meals. “You should try to limit the time window in which meals are consumed to 12 hours a day. If, for example, you finish dinner at 8:00 p.m., breakfast should be consumed from 8:00 a.m. onwards.”
8. Schedule prolonged and periodic Mima-Fast diets. “The Mima-Fast diet has been studied in at least 40 clinical studies conducted by many universities on the correlation between five days every 1-3 months of a diet with low calories and a specific combination of macronutrients to ‘mimic’ fasting, and the process of slowing down cellular aging. It is based on the consumption of a vegetable menu, not perceived by the body as ‘food’ that interferes with fasting. A menu that helps cells rest, allowing them to regenerate and rejuvenate from within. For people with illnesses or at risk, the diet should be followed under the supervision of a nutritionist and doctor.”
9. Do 150 minutes of physical exercise and one hour of walking per week as a lifestyle.
10. Maintain an appropriate weight and waist circumference. “Ideally less than 90 cm for men and less than 75 cm for women.”