Slow Food Movement

J_Beck · **Posted:** Fri Oct 09, 2009 8:41 pm

I am cross posting but I feel we have a unique enough community here to offer possibly a more lively discussion:

Just a quick wiki:

Quote:

The Slow Food movement incorporates a series of objectives within its mission, including:

* forming and sustaining seed banks to preserve heirloom varieties in cooperation with local food systems
* developing an "Ark of Taste" for each ecoregion, where local culinary traditions and foods are celebrated
* preserving and promoting local and traditional food products, along with their lore and preparation
* organizing small-scale processing (including facilities for slaughtering and short run products)
* organizing celebrations of local cuisine within regions (for example, the Feast of Fields held in some cities in Canada)
* promoting "taste education"
* educating consumers about the risks of fast food
* educating citizens about the drawbacks of commercial agribusiness and factory farms
* educating citizens about the risks of monoculture and reliance on too few genomes or varieties
* developing various political programs to preserve family farms
* lobbying for the inclusion of organic farming concerns within agricultural policy
* lobbying against government funding of genetic engineering
* lobbying against the use of pesticides
* teaching gardening skills to students and prisoners
* encouraging ethical buying in local marketplaces

From time to time, Slow Food intervenes directly in market transactions; for example, Slow Food was able to preserve four varieties of native American turkey by ordering 4,000 of their eggs and commissioning their raising and slaughtering and delivery to market

Here is a video of a panel on it (with Anthony Bourdain O0)

I saw this video last night and then thought about it while I was food shopping today. I got my eggs from a chicken farm right by my house along with some apple cider from a few towns over. Then I also went to the supermarket and got all sorts of products including some turkey bacon which is heavily processed, but tasty and healthy-ish. I agree with Bourdain here, there are some things like fresh organic eggs that can't be beat. But I can't afford to buy all locally grown it's just not possible, and some of the foods I like are imported from all over.

I guess I am slow food "light", I'll buy the local produce and go to farm stands, but that is honestly more for the taste than my carbon footprint. And that factor of taste VS price is what controls my shopping habits and has me at Market Basket when I would rather be in Wilson's Farms.

236260 · **Posted:** Tue Feb 02, 2010 11:34 pm

We have some local spots for eggs and veggies. I have thought about hitting them up at some point. Maybe this weekend.

Veriloquus · **Joined:** Sun Sep 09, 2007 8:19 pm **Posts:** 357

I've read and researched about the slow food movement. . I am slowly trying to transistion myself towards this, but it's not very easy to do. there are local farms in near us, it's just finding the time to go to them. There's a great organization called CSA: http://www.localharvest.org/csa/, that helps people to buy locally. This site was helpful for me since I don't live in or near a rural area. This spring, if finances are right, we want to set up a vegetable garden. I hope we can do this as "green" as possible ( rain catchers, compost bin, no pesticides, chemicals,etc). I think it's a good starting off point for us. At least it will cut down our grocery bill. If we can't do the garden in on backyard ( because we don't have the money to cut down some trees), we can certainly make do with planting them into barrels, and such. But I know Brian really wants to get a garden going.. and so do I.

J_Beck · **Posted:** Tue Feb 09, 2010 3:20 pm

Veriloquus wrote:

I've read and researched about the slow food movement. . I am slowly trying to transistion myself towards this, but it's not very easy to do. there are local farms in near us, it's just finding the time to go to them. There's a great organization called CSA: http://www.localharvest.org/csa/, that helps people to buy locally. This site was helpful for me since I don't live in or near a rural area. This spring, if finances are right, we want to set up a vegetable garden. I hope we can do this as "green" as possible ( rain catchers, compost bin, no pesticides, chemicals,etc). I think it's a good starting off point for us. At least it will cut down our grocery bill. If we can't do the garden in on backyard ( because we don't have the money to cut down some trees), we can certainly make do with planting them into barrels, and such. But I know Brian really wants to get a garden going.. and so do I.

The big one for me is eggs, they might be 30-70% more but hell eggs are cheap and these taste right (aka they were laid the day before) once you grab your eggs for breakfast from the chicken coupe like I did in Quebec the store bought eggs are tasteless.

Veriloquus · **Joined:** Sun Sep 09, 2007 8:19 pm **Posts:** 357

During the winter months, when most vegetables are not in harvest, i go to the store buy my vegetables. However, I try to at least get vegetables that are labeled with USDA organic symbol on them. I am still trying to research this and see what exactly are their standards. But to me, that symbols tells me that the company at least worked with some standards of growing organic. The best is to go to a local farm.

Slow Food Movement

Slow Food Movement

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