Is the Mediterranean diet sustainable?

In the international debate on the sustainability of diets and food systems, in recent years the Mediterranean diet, predominantly a plant-based diet with low consumption of animal and industrial products, has been increasingly studied as a model of sustainable diet, context-specific for the Mediterranean. Its sustainability is characterized by four interrelated sustainable benefits, with country-specific variations in nutrition and health, environment, local economy, society and culture. Many questions still need to be addressed on sociocultural and economic assessments of the Mediterranean diet. It is necessary to develop a systemic approach on the Mediterranean diet as a sustainable dietary pattern, more than only on its characteristic food groups. It requires updating the notion of the Mediterranean diet, with a new perspective as a contemporary Mediterranean sustainable lifestyle with contextual differences. In conclusion, it is necessary to rethink the Mediterranean diet, as a sustainable diet model, within the framework of the Mediterranean sustainable food systems, through a new transdisciplinary narrative, overcoming the silos of disciplines, at different levels of specialization, and fragmented sectoral approaches, centered on present and future Mediterranean generations.(c) 2023 Societe francaise de nutrition. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.