★English translation available.

Is packaged salad more polluting than fresh salad? From an environmental point of view, are free range hens better than caged hens? And which meat should we choose if we want to lighten our ecological footprint on the planet? What about organic food? And OGM? Every day we ask ourselves similar questions, and often our answers, if not totally wrong, are based on partial or incorrect data. Il cibo perfetto brings clarity to a field where the debate often looks like an ideological warfare between opposite parties. The authors make use of the LCA methodology to analyse all the different stages of food production, first in the fields or in the farms and then industrial transformation, packaging, distribution and consumption, and then he defines their environmental impacts in a rigorously scientific way. Although this can make some people unhappy, there are no easy solutions, and when dealing with food, each choice has got complex consequences, with advantages and side effects both for us as consumers and as part of society, and for the environment.

Massimo Marino, environmental engineer, is one of the founders of Life Cycle Engineering, a strategic consultancy company in the field of environmental sustainability. For many years he has devoted special attention to the application of the Life Cycle Assessment to agri-food products.

Carlo Alberto Pratesi teaches Marketing, innovation and sustainability at the University Roma 3. Since 2009 he has been working in research and communication with the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition. He’s one of the founders of the association InnovAction Lab.