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Slow Food
By Ray Remmington, Jr.
You must have heard about fast food? Just to name a few sources: MacDonalds. Kentucky Fried Chicken. Burger King. Pizza Hut.
Now there is a new movement called Slow Food. Originating in Italy twenty years ago, it is a movement to take food production away from the big companies such as those listed above and reconnect small farmers with consumers. In practical terms that means putting taste back into the heart of food, saving heirloom fruits, vegetables and animals, keeping small farmers in business and in local communities and pushing farming back to sound environmental ground.
The movement is definitely gaining strength. Recently at an International meeting in Turrin, Italy, called the Terra Madre, thousands of adherents attended. It was truly an international scene as one observer described it:
“Senegalese cereal farmers in purple satin and matching headdresses traded packaging tips with Peruvian potato growers in traditional red embroidered garb. Goat cheese makers and Hmong long bean growers from California find common ground with their Italian and Eastern European counterparts. Israeli and Palestinian farmers, along with Iraqi and American food producers, share space and the common chat that food never fails to stimulate.”
More than 5,000 small farmers and food-makers from 130 countries, plus 1000 chefs, came to eat, network and to build a global counterculture. It is the second such gathering organized by Slow Food International. The movement now has 80,000 members in 50 countries including 12,000 in the United States.
One great motivating concern for the movement is health problems caused by fast food. Carlo Petrini, founder of Slow Food, recently stated: “obesity, diabetes, widening economic disparities across the world and environmental issues like global warming show that the current system defined by speed, abundance and waste, can no longer sustain itself.”
Adherents see a new political movement around food. As one person observed, “In fact, it is about a lot more than food--- it's about our health, the health of local economies and the energy crisis.
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