Nutrition practices and health: perspectives of an interdisciplinary research

It is well known that worsening of economic situation leads to pauperization of the population and deterioration in food quality, what in turn negatively affects the physical and mental health of people. In this regard, it is particularly relevant to study the problems of correlation between traditional nutrition together with the modern food practices and the standards of healthy nutrition. The aim of the study is to determine the role of traditional nutrition and modern food practices with regard to the health of the population of the Republic of Moldova. One of the main tasks is to define the scale of maintaining traditional nutrition by different ethnic communities of Moldova. The essence of the interdisciplinary approach is that, along with the approaches and methods customary for ethnology, it is planned to use some elements from the field of medicine, dietology and nutritiology in the future study. For example, the list of tasks includes identification of the new products and the new food practices in daily nutrition of the population, as well as calculation of calories consumed and their further comparison with the standards of healthy eating. This study will demonstrate the fact that the subject field of ethnology continues to expand and provides opportunities for new interdisciplinary research.