Manuela APETREI *, Carmen CĂTUNĂ‐BOCA,
Diana Cerasela BAMBOI, Irina Simona AIONESĂ
National Institute of Economic Research “Costin C. Kirițescu”, Centre of Mountain Economy CE-MONT, Petreni no. 49, 725700, Vatra Dornei, Romania
* Corresponding author: manuela.apetrei@ce‐mont.ro
DOI: https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.13353789
Abstract
Based on the Hippocratic exhortation of 2,400 years ago: “let food be your medicine and medicine (cure) be your food”, this scientific approach aims to argue the use of mountain products as an alternative to a medical regimen aimed at preventing, relieving or treating certain diseases. Research in recent decades has shown that diet is one of the key determinants of health, with an unhealthy diet being the perfect support for modern diseases such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, lung disease, obesity, cancer, etc. Analysing the incidence of disease in an industrialising and urbanising society (which leads to changes in eating habits through the consumption of high calorie and fat-dense foods, low dietary fibre and low-quality protein), we can see the importance of food as a medicine. Mountain products are foods with a high nutritional value, unpolluted, tasty, healthy and come from plants living in a clean and quiet environment and from animals consuming the highest quality forage from mountain pastures with high nutritional value. Basically, through its natural characteristics, but also the stored energy value, the mountain product transforms the most precious natural elements – pure water, clean air, soil unaffected by chemicals, into high quality products that can influence the health of the human body. Out of responsibility for our health, we need to choose those components that meet the requirement of being compatible with the biochemical structure of the human body and are in full accordance with the energy of living.
Keywords:
mountain product, health, healthy eating, bioactive compounds, natural therapy