Health
Healthiest Lifestyle in Europe
Slow Food versus Fast Food, and the changes we should make to our diets and lifestyles…
I’d Rather Stay Here
Learning to live with phobias is a common social challenge. Active ways of treatment can help
Manipulating Food for Everyone
As global warming decreases crop yields and population growth increases the number of hungry mouths, genetically modified food is gaining momentum as a way to fight global hunger
How does the eurozone crisis affect your life?
Main Content
"Slow Food" Takes Its Time
In any fairly sized city in the world, there is one restaurant where you can order the same food, no matter where you are- McDonald’s.
An oasis for those with hunger for “home’s flavours” as opposed to the sometimes too quirky local food, it is also the reason the slow food movement was created. Born in 1986 to oppose the opening of fast-food chain McDonald’s near the Spanish Steps in Rome, the international organisation now boasts having more than 100,000 members in 132 countries.
The foundation philosophy of this non-profit organisation is to “counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions” and to increase people’s interest in the origin and flavour of the food they eat. Furthermore, the foundation explains “how our food choices affect the rest of the world.” The idea stuck and the organisation grew. Countries such as Switzerland, France or the UK have their own organisational sections. They are then divided into smaller local communities called “convivium.” The slow food movement expanded into several other ventures such as the University of Gastronomic Sciences whose goal is to promote awareness of good food and nutrition. Food related events such as Il Salone Del Gusto, held biannually in Turin (Italy) (in 2008) are also popular as attested by the 180.000 visitors. The slow food movement is also focused on the preservation of small producers and artisan products, from Tibetan cheese makers producing yak milk cheese to nomadic fishermen in Mauritania.
Despite its seemingly laudable goals, the organisation is not free from controversy. The movement is linked to the left ideology through the political beliefs of its leader, the Italian Carlo Petroni. Thus, the foundation carries the risk of excluding those coming from a diverse political spectrum. The organisation has also been accused of being “anti-technological and anti-globalisation.” Petroni advocates for a transformation of the consumer into a co-producer. To achieve this, one has to be informed about how the food has been produced and give support to those who produce it. By doing so the consumer is involved as a partner in the production process and transforms into co-producer. The controversy stems, as usual, from mixing politics with...food. However, the trend to acknowledge the importance of establishing the origin of the food we eat has been widely accepted.
According to Michael Pollan, writer of the book Food Rules, “the corporisation of something as basic and intimate as eating is, for many of us today, a good place to draw the line.” The movement’s interest to recover certain values and “heritage” products is also one of its weaknesses, as it has been accused of being elitist. Of course, learning about how “Farmer Busby made his dandelion wine” as blogger Paul Levy points out, might not be what one expected when paying the membership fee. The foundation’s broad range of “missions”, according to Pollan, attracts individuals not only because of the political background but also because of sacred values related to community and identity. A major point of attraction to the public is also the pleasure to introduce a different socio-economic paradigm that transcends the big corporations, and with it, fast food industries and government policies.
Wonder what happened to the idea of the McDonald’s near the Spanish Steps? They built it, but it was the first of its type that served “local” specialities (the fast food emblem- pizza) in addition to hamburgers.