Slow Food Movement

To combat fast food, the Slow Food Movement was launched by Carlo Petrini in Italy as a global, grassroots movement with thousands of members around the world that links the pleasure of food with a commitment to community and the environment.

Why should I be aware of this?

• The slow food movement challenges us to think about how consumption choices we make form part of on interdependent network within a social economy.
• The slow food movement establishes that people should eat and drink slowly, with enough time to taste their food, spend time with the family, friends, without rushing. The movement is against its counterpart: the spirit of fast food and what it stands for as a lifestyle.

All about Slow Food Movement

The slow food movement aims to be everything fast food is not. It's slow — in the making and the eating. It's fresh — not processed. It's from neighborhood farms and stores — not from industrial growers such as Tyson Foods or retail goliaths such as Wal-Mart.

It doesn't aim to be big business. But businesses are sprouting around it — and being affected by it

Questions the sense of “hurry”

The slow food movement questions the sense of “hurry” generated by globalization. This no-rush attitude doesn’t represent doing less or having a lower productivity. It means working and doing things with greater quality, productivity, perfection, and attention to details. involving less stress.

Junk foods don't contain any nutrients, vitamins and minerals. They are produced too fast in a way that looks good aesthetically. On the other hand, slow food is completely the opposite and takes a long time to produce.

A way of life

The Slow Food movement is also a way of life. It includes eating locally grown and raised vegetables, meats.

Food is also prepared with a certain amount of time and care. It is an alternative way of life which propagates that that food is pleasurable and we need to embrace the pleasures we've rejected of late for the pleasure of instant gratification. It acknowledges that we are human, and therefore require sustenance on a variety of levels -- physical, social, emotional and spiritual.

The slow food movement not only believes in eating tasty, but also nutritious and healthy. Which in turn will be good for the planet and for the people who produce it. The message being propagated is to eat healthy and eat responsibly.

What can I do?

• Develop an "ark of taste" for each eco-region, where local culinary traditions and foods are celebrated.
• Promote "taste education."
• Educate consumers about the risks of fast food, the risks of monoculture and reliance on too few genomes or varieties.
• Form and sustain seed banks to preserve heirloom varieties in cooperation with local food systems.

References:

• What is slow food?
• Slow Food Movement
• Fast food passe, time for slow food