Slow food

Ever stop and wonder where that sandwich you are eating came from and have a hard time remembering why half of it is gone already? Read more to find out about the Slow Food movement, a non-profit, eco-gastronomic and member-supported organization founded as a resistance movement to fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s diminishing awareness of what they eat, its origins, its taste and the effect our food choices have on the rest of the world.

Founded in Italy by Carlo Petrini in 1986, Slow Food became an international association in 1989, with supporters in 130 countries.

The philosophy of the movement, founded to defend gastronomic pleasure and seek a more aware pace of life, extended its focus from the virtues of food to considering the quality of life and identity; aiming to recognize the history and culture of food in reciprocal exchange. Whether you consider a variety of fruit or a traditional local dish, you cannot ignore its relationship with history, material culture and the environment in which it originated.

The Slow Food philosophy believes in recognizing the importance of pleasure connected to food, its vast range of recipes and flavors, the variety of places and people producing food and the seasonality of produce. The movement calls this approach eco-gastronomy, an attitude that combines a respect and interest gastronomic culture with support for those battling to defend international food and agricultural biodiversity.

Slow Food stresses the need for taste education as the best defense against poor quality, food adulteration and as the main way to combat the invasion of fast food into our diets. It helps to safeguard local cuisines, traditional products and plant and animal species at risk of extinction.

The Slow Food movement supports a less intensive and healthier model of agriculture, founded on the practical and traditional knowledge of local communities, which they consider the only type of agriculture able to offer prospects for development to the poorest regions in the world. For these reasons Slow Food is committed to safeguarding foods, raw materials and traditional methods of cultivation and transformation.  It seeks to defend the biodiversity of cultivated and wild varieties, promoting the use and protection of heirloom seed varieties.

Slow Food seeks to protect places that form a part of our shared cultural heritage because of their historic, artistic or social value.

The network of over 85,000 Slow Food members is organized into local groups who coordinate courses, tastings and dinners, promote campaigns at regional level and participate in large international events organized by the association to help encourage a more aware and ethical food consumer.