Slow Food Movement
Red eyed, cranky and starving, you’ve arrived at your final destination at an ungodly hour. You feel faint so you shove the first edible thing you see in your mouth. It’s a typical story for the backpacker ‐ we came, we saw, we ate, then we had to catch the next train, plane or ferry out of town. Feeling like a guilty glutton? Well then now is the time to sit down, slow down and chow down ‐ ethically, of course! This month’s food for thought takes a look at the Slow Food movement and how you can nourish your mind, your soul and your body while travelling.
Story Highlights
- Eating Ethically
- The Slow Food Movement
- Fast Life Fast Food
- Support Slow Food
Eating Ethically
Eating and travelling go hand in hand. At extremes, eating is an experience that is either incredibly pleasurable or downright horrible. In the mundane scheme of things however, it’s a human necessity. So if eating is such a sensory experience, shouldn’t it also be an ethical one too?
The Slow Food Movement ‐ A Fight For Good, Clean and Fair Food
Founded in 1989, the Slow Food movement is an international non‐profit organisation made up of a network of 950 convivia (local groups), dedicated to good, clean and fair food. An alternative to fast food and fast life, the movement advocates food that not only gives us pleasure to eat, but food that’s produced in an environmentally friendly way. Slow Food also ensures that producers and farmers receive a fair price for their produce.
But far from being just an organization, Slow Food is a way of thinking with the belief that everyone, including the budget conscious backpacker, has the right to pleasure where food is concerned. Beyond being good, clean and fair, Slow Food also recognises the biodiversity of plant and animal species within an area, and their significance to local cuisine.
Fast Life Fast Food
The movement also recognises that we live a fast life and even the laid back traveller can succumb to the push and pull of schedules, time tables and yes, that’s right, fast food. But rather than simply being a reaction to the fast pace of life and its accompanying impact on our diet, Slow Food goes a step further to protect food heritage with campaigns, bodies and publications, all dedicated to that purpose.
For example, The Ark of Taste was set up in 1996 to catalogue at‐risk foods while the Taste Education programme helps young people to understand the cultural importance of food. Furthermore Slow Food Terra Madre and Slow Food Nation are campaigns that raise awareness about how food is produced and distributed, culminating in a three or four day exposition in the host country.
Support Slow Food
But what can we as travellers do to support Slow Food? Perhaps we should start by recognising that we are also part of the planet to plate chain, but not simply as consumers. Slow Food believes we are co‐producers, cognizant of the different links in this chain. From production to distribution and even processing!
But what about supporting the movement when you’re on the road? Henry Hoffman of Slow Food UK says, “My one piece of advice to travellers would be to ask and find out about local foods - and eat them, even if they're foods they don't normally eat.”
With more than 100,000 Slow Food members in 23 countries around the globe, you guys are spoilt for choice, so the next time you travel, slow down, sit down and spare some thought for food.
For more information on Slow Food in the UK and around the world, check out the website.
‐ Jackie Reddy
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