146 The Cyprus Food and Nutrition Virtual Museum. An Attempt to Preserve and Disseminate Knowledge about Past Foodways and Controversial Issues Regarding the Revival of Traditional Food Antonia-Leda Matalas, Crystalleni Lazarou and Yiorgos Chrysanthou Traditional Diets and Foods. Their Significance for Modern Societies Various perspectives on traditional food have been extensively examined in scholarly literature on the subject. By studying the history of traditional food products an opportunity is afforded to put on record the knowledge and skills inherent in the production and preservation of traditional food, to investigate the impact of their consumption on human health, and to establish diet-disease relationships. Last, but not least, such a study also serves to further inform the history of local regions, and to enable the establishment of cultural identity and historical consciousness. The traditional Mediterranean diets, in particular, have been acknowledged as being important elements of humanity’s intangible cultural heritage. 1 The Mediterranean basin is known to harbour an extensive range of flora biodiversity, mainly due to its climatic conditions. In the past, plant foods have predominated in the Mediterranean diet and this is also the case today. Cyprus, an island on the borderline between Asia and Europe, stands as one of the centres of agriculture in the eastern Mediterranean since prehistoric times. Small-scale and subsistence farming, along with some foraging activities, have traditionally been the means of support for 1 Reguant-Aleix, J., Arbore, R., Bach-Faig, A., Serra-Majem, L,. ‘The Mediterranean Heritage: An Intangible Cultural Heritage’, Public Health Nutrition 12 (2009): 1591-4. For a presentation on the Mediterranean diet as part of the world’s intangible cultural heritage, see: UNESCO. 1995-2010. Intangible heritage. http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?lg=EN&pg=home; accessed April 2013.