In this excerpt, I?d like to focus our attention to the playful and tasty pleasures of the Mediterranean Cuisine with respect to our children. They are, after all, the next generation who will lead our nutritional future. In a few years, our children will hopefully ponder the sustainability of our earth and explore what it means to live a ?green? life or consider the importance of minimizing our footprint or perhaps even maximize the principles of the 100-mile diet.

Sustainability of our earth and respecting our land first starts with learning how to respect ourselves and our own health. I?m sure you?ll agree when I say that the appreciation of a healthy and balanced lifestyle is a learned tendency, one which the longer we practice, the more consistent we become in our habits. Hence, the sooner we get started to learn healthy habits and the appreciation of a balanced healthy lifestyle, the more fluent we become in our adult years.

As attested by the British Medical Association in 2005, good nutrition is important for all, especially for younger children, especially younger than five years, as these years are critical for their development. Statistics from the World Health Organization show that ?over 22 million children in the world are under the age of five years are severely overweight.? The key is to get children trained as early on as possible, the first 5 years are most critical, so setting a healthy pattern early is important to help prepare them for the growth and development of the next decade.