SLOW FOOD vs FAST FOOD

Living in a city like London you always find yourself running against time or running after a train or a bus!! Therefore the daily routine brings you to just grab a quick sandwich for lunch to eat while you read your last e mails or check your Facebook profile.

That sounds like sad but it’s daily life. For somebody like me, who loves preparing food, knowing about food and spend a lot of time enjoying it with a good amount of wine, anything that it doesn’t look like a proper meal (maybe prepared with love, care and knowledge) sounds like FAST FOOD.

I want to refer to this way of eating as FAST FOOD, without saying that is good or bad, healthy or unhealthy but just considering the time people spend worrying about what they are eating.

SLOW FOOD means (not just to me, of course!) taking time to know more about what you are eating, understanding the whole culture behind a meal. Master of this concept is SLOW FOOD (www.slowfood.com): a non-profit, eco-gastronomic member-supported organization that was founded in 1989 to counteract fast food and fast life. Nowadays SLOWFOOD has over 100,000 members in 132 countries.

The mission: “to defend biodiversity in our food supply, spread taste education and connect producers of excellent foods with co-producers through events and initiatives.” The members all over the world organize meals, tastings, fairs, festivals, workshops, conferences, visits to local food producers, taste education initiatives.

SLOW FOOD is present in the UK as well with SLOW FOOD UK (www.slowfood.org.uk). Have a look to the web site, it is plenty of interesting things to do and discover.

In Italy SLOW FOOD is famous for many international fairs such as “Il Salone del gusto” or “Cheese” as well as projects such as TERRA MADRE (www.terramadre.org).

As stated in the fair web site: “ The Salone del Gusto is educational, because it is about learning, knowing, comparing and discovering, but always in the name of a right to responsible and fully shared pleasure.”

So let’s start knowing better anything we eat and drink. It would be as well a great excuse to know new cultures and otherwise unknown sides of our Planet.