It is called "mindful eating", that is, a conscious diet and nothing else but a way of eating that provides for the full presence of oneself, without distractions and maintaining a balanced and non-judgmental mental predisposition. This practice aims to focus on the experience of eating, activating all the senses and exploring their relationship with food. Well, a product made in Italy such as San Daniele ham proves to be a key food within a conscious diet.

This is underlined by the San Daniele Ham Consortium, according to which nutrition, food safety and the health of people and the planet represent some key themes of its agenda. Prosciutto di San Daniele is a food product suitable for every type of diet and for every diet, the Consortium emphasizes: "thanks to its macro and micronutrient content it is made in full respect of people’s health. It is a good and natural product, made only with selected Italian pork legs and sea salt". 

Free of additives and preservatives, it is a food with high nutritional value. San Daniele PDO is rich in proteins of high biological quality characterized by a rapid digestibility, due to the work of some enzymes that, during the aging processes, operate a kind of predigestion. From a lipid point of view, Prosciutto di San Daniele is characterized by the presence of essential fatty acids of the omega-3 and omega-6 families. While at the level of micronutrients, it contains vitamins of group B (in particular B1, B2 and B6) and important mineral salts such as sodium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, iron, magnesium and copper. 

These elements have meant that Prosciutto di San Daniele was confirmed, also in 2023, as one of the most known PDO products and consumed in Europe and abroad: last year the production of San Daniele DOP was 2,590,000 legs produced in 31 production plants located in the town of San Daniele del Friuli (Udine), with a total turnover, resulting from production and distribution activities, of 360 million Euro. The share of exports amounted to 19%, compared to the total sales of the year, with about 3 million pounds directed to the market outside Italy: 55% of the total export quotas was allocated to the European Union, while the remaining 45% was exported to third countries. 

The countries that hold the most important share for the export of Prosciutto di San Daniele PDO are confirmed in order of volumes: France, the United States, Australia, Germany and Belgium. The other main foreign destination markets are Switzerland, Austria, UK, Luxembourg and Canada. In 2023 there were also excellent performances, in order of volume exported, for the United States (+11%), Australia (+7%), the United Kingdom (+30%) and the Czech Republic (+18%).

The number of pre-packaged San Daniele ham trays exceeded 21.3 million certified packages, amounting to 407,000 hams, for a total of over 2 million kilos, "confirming itself as a trend in line with new consumption methods and customer needs".

Indicated for every age group and for every type of diet, San Daniele PDO, thanks to its well-balanced nutritional properties, can be included in a balanced diet. In the case of diets with a low sodium intake, experts suggest to accompany San Daniele with products rich in potassium, such as wholemeal bread and vegetables.

As the Consortium reiterates in an official statement, a healthy and balanced diet is able to positively affect the development and performance of each, the quality of life and psychophysical conditions: a proper diet provides the body, in the right proportions, all the nutrients it needs, useful for the prevention of certain diseases.

In addition to production, it is essential, in fact, to work for sustainable food consumption, with the promotion of healthy diets by combating malnutrition and diseases related to nutrition and reducing the environmental impact of food consumption and waste. The consumer, underlines the note of the Consortium, "in recent years, is increasingly attentive to the quality of products that buys, the transparency of production processes and increasingly pays attention to what is reported on the labels".

In this sense, the Consortium promotes the nutritional values of Prosciutto di San Daniele and its consumption methods through communication campaigns and training activities towards the outside world and its members. In collaboration with the main signs of large-scale distribution, with associations of restaurateurs and hotel schools, the Consortium organizes training sessions aimed at consumers, large and medium distribution operators such as managers and employees of the delicatessen departments, restaurateurs, horeca operators and students "with the precise objective of forming on the characteristics and peculiarities of the ham, the territory of origin, the practices for the appropriate treatment and for the service of the product as well as the essential information to be communicated to the consumer".