The Mediterranean Diet draws its origins from the history, culture and lifestyle of the Cilento, coming from a traditional feeding system in Magna Graecia.
Local eating habits have remained rooted and maintained through the centuries, initially due to the poverty that characterized this territory in the Middle Ages. The people fed with simple products of the land and the sea, learning to cook them in a simple and tasty way, creating the Cilento culinary tradition.

This food system, called today Mediterranean Diet, has been identified by an American nutritionist, Ancel Keys, who has been studying it for years together with a group of other colleagues.

The dott. Keys, starting from the observation of the eating habits of the people of Cilento, was convinced that the low incidence of cardiovascular disease and the absence of tumors was due to the type of diet that these populations adopted by tradition centuries The scientist promoted a wide research program evaluating the longevity and the good state of health of the inhabitants and the type of feeding characteristic of this geographical area. In 2009, during the conference on the Mediterranean Diet held in Pioppi (SA), very close to Ascea, attended by distinguished scientists, a document was signed stating the effective connection between the Mediterranean diet and the Cilento, thus becoming the Cilento World Capital of the Mediterranean diet.