ONLINE: The Italian Way: Mediterranean Diet vs. Food Waste

press release: During the annual “Week of Italian Cuisine in the World 2020,” a series of events are planned at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This year’s edition at UW-Madison is dedicated to Italian food writer Pellegrino Artusi since 2020 marks the Bicentennial of the birth of Pellegrino Artusi, author of Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (1891) and “father” of Italian cuisine. At UW-Madison, Artusi figures prominently in our courses and academic activities, and the UW Library features several important editions of his book in its Special Collections. For a special video Casa Artusi a Forlimpopoli about Pellegrino Artusi and Casa Artusi in Forlimpopoli (Italy) click here: Casa Artusi Video.

Week of Italian Cuisine in the World events are free and open to all. This year's events will be on Zoom; for links or more information, contact: Prof. Grazia Menechella gmeneche@wisc.edu. https://www.facebook.com/ItalianatUWMadison/.

Tuesday, November 17, 2020, 1:15 pm – 2:15 pm US Central time – Zoom lecture 

Public lecture "The Italian Way: Mediterranean Diet vs Food Waste” by Prof. Andrea Segrè (University of Bologna)

Welcoming remarks and special toast to Pellegrino Artusi by Dr. Thomas Botzios (Consul General of Italy), Dr. Luca Di Vito (Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Chicago), Dr. Laila Tentoni (President of Casa Artusi in Forlimpopoli, Italy), and Prof. Grazia Menechella (University of Wisconsin-Madison).

Online lecture in English.

The “Week of Italian Cuisine in the World 2020,” with events organized worldwide, stresses the health benefits of the Mediterranean Diet during the pandemic. In his lecture, Prof. Segrè will stress the characteristics of the Mediterranean diet as a model for a sustainable lifestyle following his motto “think locally, act globally” -- a motto in which he stresses the link between collective and personal actions and how they impact our world. 

Andrea Segrè is a professor of International and Comparative Agricultural Policy at the University of Bologna. Prof. Segrè’s research is on circular and sustainable ecological economics, and he is a leading scholar of the Mediterranean diet as a model of sustainable diet, and the founder of special projects that focus on reducing and eliminating food waste. He is the president of the FICO Foundation and the AgroFood Center in Bologna. In 2014, for his engagement against food waste, he was the recipient of the prestigious Artusi Award from Casa Artusi. Among his publications are Lezioni di ecostile (Mondadori, 2010), Transforming Food Waste into a Resource (with Silvia Gaiani, Royal Society of Chemistry, 2011), Cibo (Il Mulino, 2015), L’oro nel piatto. Valore e valori nel piatto (Einaudi, 2015), Basta il giusto (quanto e quando) Lettera a uno studente sulla società della sufficienza (Altraeconomia, 2015), Mangia come sai. Cibo che nutre, cibo che consuma (EMI, 2017), Il gusto per le cose giuste (Mondadori, 2017), Il metodo spreco zero (Rizzoli, 2019), Le parole del nostro tempo (with Matteo Zuppi, EDB, 2020). His essay “Pyramids & Circles: The Mediterranean Diet in the Geometry of the Stilmedio” is included in the recent Italian/English volume I segreti della dieta mediterranea / The Secrets of Mediterranean Diet edited by Marino Niola and Elisabetta Moro (Il Mulino, 2020).