It's no secret that Italians are big pork eaters, but pork actually goes into a lot of Italy's most esoteric cuisine. In fact, some of the most famous regional dishes use some of the strangest cuts of pork.
The most common foods in the Italian diet include pasta, cheese, vegetables, olive oil, meats, and wine. Italians give a lot of importance to fresh ingredients. They use seasonal ingredients to prepare meals. The Italian diet consists of breakfast (colazione), lunch (pranzo), and dinner (cena).
Italians enjoy a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, beans, fish, poultry, olive oil, tomatoes, whole grains, dairy, red wine -- and they eat very little red meat.
In 2019, only a fraction of Italian survey respondents stated that they eat meat and sausages daily. Meat and sausages were consumed multiple times a week by 38 percent of Italian survey respondents. About a third of Italian respondents stated that they do not eat meat products and sausages.
Italy's historic “cucina povera” rustic cuisine is heavily influenced by the deeply-rooted Italian tradition of rural families raising and home-butchering a pig (or two) each winter to see them through the year.
The top consumer of pork in 2021 continued to be China, taking into account its special economic regions Hong Kong, Macau, and Mainland China, whose consumptions were about 61, 52, and 37 kg/inhabitant respectively.
Pigs carry a variety of parasites: Pigs can carry parasites in their meat, including the nodular worm, whipworm, lungworm, stomach worm, kidney worm, and roundworm. These parasites are difficult to kill even during cooking, and can cause serious health issues in humans.
Well, it is because of the Mediterranean diet! People in Italy enjoy a diet rich in vegetables, fruits, beans, tomatoes, poultry, whole grains, olive oil, red wine, dairy ― and they consume very little red meat. They usually satisfy a sweet tooth with fruits instead of sugary desserts as well.
Light on Processed Food, Heavy on Nutritional Food Labeling
"When you go into an Italian supermarket, you do not find junk food," O'Leary explains. "They have a couple of brands of chips, and everything else is food you need to cook."
Breakfast in Italy: what to expect
Homemade breakfast in Italy is usually a straightforward affair. Traditional breakfast drinks in Italian households are coffee, tea and cocoa milk for the kids and the main breakfast foods are bread with butter and jam, biscuits and cereals.
Most dinners consist of a salad, the primo (pasta or soup dish) and the secondo (meat or fish dish). The Italians also enjoy cooked vegetables like artichokes, eggplants, mushrooms, spinach and zucchini, which they either buy at the market or grow in their gardens.
Dinner (Cena)
A typical dinner at an Italian home is usually pasta, meat, and vegetables, and takes place around 8 p.m. Going out for dinner in Italy is a pretty big thing to do, or eat, for that matter: Several courses, wine, and a long time chatting and lingering are all part of the event.
Ideally, lunch includes courses; a primo piattoor first course, like pasta, gnocchi, or rice, a protein, and vegetables. Normally, lunch is Italian's biggest and most sustaining meal of the day. If visiting Roma in the warmer months, read Rome's Best Outside Eateries and choose a spot to eat a typical Roman lunch.
Number one on our list of the best traditional foods in Italy has to be pizza. Everyone knows what pizza is, it needs no introduction, but what you probably know as pizza isn't quite the same as in Italy.
Food is deeply embedded into their culture and the classic Italian diet encompasses plenty of vegetables, olive oil, pasta, lean meats and fresh fish. This resulted in Italians having lower blood pressure and cholesterol than other developed nations.
Italians eat the most pasta worldwide – about 60 pounds of pasta per person per year. Most Italians eat pasta every day but they keep their portions in check. A portion in Italy is about a cup and the meal includes a small portion of meat and a large portion of vegetables and salad.
Although Italy is known for its pizza and pasta, it is the healthiest country in the world because of its food. Meals are both healthy and delicious, and you can still lose weight following an Italian diet. Healthy fats, fresh veggies, and, yes, wonderful pasta all contribute to the country's low obesity rates.
Obesity rates are low in Italy, relative to most OECD countries, but are very high among children. About 1 in 10 people is obese in Italy, significantly less than the OECD average of 1 in 6. More than 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women are overweight.
Bread is the centrepiece of our Mediterranean diet, a central element of lives and cultures. Christians consider it a sacred food, broken and shared at the table, a symbol of brotherhood.
The most recent World Economic Forum named Italians the healthiest population in the world right after the Spanish.
Pasta is easy and cheap to make, and many different sauces are born from just a handful of ingredients, like pasta carbonara or pasta amatriciana. With just a few ingredients, Italians can create an affordable and delicious meal that can provide nutritional value and sustenance.
Pork is a food taboo among Jews, Muslims, and some Christian denominations. Swine were prohibited in ancient Syria and Phoenicia, and the pig and its flesh represented a taboo observed, Strabo noted, at Comana in Pontus.
Least healthy meats
Processed Meats: Notably, there are over 200 types of cold cuts and processed meats. These include hot dogs, bologna, and Vienna sausages. Processed meat is often made of less healthy organs like the stomach, lips, and heart.
In “The Golden Bough,” Sir James Frazer wrote that pig meat was forbidden because it had originally been an animal used for sacrifice. “All so-called unclean animals were originally sacred,” Sir James wrote. “The reason for not eating them is that many were originally divine.”