Healthy Food Healthy Mood

“Healthy Food Healthy Mood” is a youth exchange project that will bring together 42 young participants from 8 European countries for a 6-day program of activities on the importance of a healthy eating style, to give them the opportunity to become European promoters of a new gastronomic philosophy and for a more conscious consumption in line with the problems of modernity.

The main objective is to sensitize young people to a new concept of food that has been spreading in recent years, more attentive to the dietary needs of each individual and healthier in terms of land use and environmental sustainability. After an exhaustive needs analysis among all the partners, we have realized that it is necessary to give nutritional guidelines and recommendations to create healthy lifestyle habits mainly focused on the youth population. Lack of time, frequent meals away from home or the unattractiveness of healthy food (defined by young people themselves as tasteless and unappetizing) are the most frequent reasons given by this population group to excuse their unhealthy eating, leaving the door open to the business of producing and selling junk food. The increase in this type of establishments and the low cost have contributed to the natural and frequent establishment, especially among young people, of the consumption of this type of food and precooked food in their regular diet.

The exchange will be implemented in Madrid, the operational headquarters of MAD for Europe and the heart of the gastronomic tradition of central Spain, which continues to attract tourists from all over the world, and which from a gastronomic point of view – especially in the last ten years – has become a pioneer in meeting more and more people‘s dietary needs, offering more conscious choices in relation to issues such as organic food, celiac disease, intolerances and the sustainable use of resources. During the activities, participants will be divided into groups and mix with each other, so that a mutual exchange of traditions, opinions and interesting ideas related to the theme of the project proposal can take place.

Youth exchange is for everybody who are interested in the topic, want to travel, learn and meet new people and cultures from the age of 18 – 30. Leaders can be older than that.