Imagine there is no McDonalds or any other fast food restaurants. What will you eat? Nowadays, people live such a fast pace life, fast food has become the default option. According to a study commissioned by Hear and Stroke Canada in 2017, almost half the foods Canadians eat were highly processed (2017). After reading “The Cult of Busyness” by Barbara Ehrenreich, I realized my life was just like what she described. I was eating fast food while drafting a contract for clients and doing calf-toning exercises under the desk in the office. I was doing so many things at once, I was in the cult of conspicuous busyness. She revealed that in order to be truly successful, one must learn how not to be busy, one must find the things that are worth doing (Ehrenreich). After reading Slow Food’s manifesto, I found the one thing that’s worthy of my true success. I decided that I am going to re-build an intimate connection with food, because by losing the connection with food, I lost the source to the greatest happiness in my life. Starting that day, I spent quality time in preparing, sharing and eating my food. I always thought that “You are what you eat”, I don’t want fast food to be my identity anymore. I want a better life, I want health and happiness. Adapting Slow Food lifestyle will not only provide us an improved quality of life, bringing us more happiness, but also preserve humanity as a whole by protecting our culture and the environment.
We all know what the fast food lifestyle is like, but are you familiar with the slow food lifestyle? To understand how important it is, you need to know what it is. Based on Dumitru, Lema-Blanco, García-Mira, & Kunze, researchers of Transformative Social Innovation Theory,
Slow Food is known to be “Pleasure and happiness in food are a universal right (the good); making it sustainably, so that it does not consume more resources than it produces (the clean); and making it so that it creates no inequities and respects every person involved in its production (the just). By bringing food back to the centre of our lives we commit ourselves to the future of the planet and to our own happiness.” (2016). In other words, Slow Food is an approach for us to prioritize our lives to consume food that uses minimal natural resources while produces least amount of waste and emissions, and as a result, we can have an improved quality of life and also protect the environment for our future generations.
Carlo Petrini, the revolutionist who started the Slow Food Movement 30 years ago. He believes that we are “prey to the same virus: ‘the fast life’ that fractures our customs and assails us even in our own homes, forcing us to ingest ‘fast food.’ The manifesto goes as far as to propose a “vaccine of an adequate portion of sensual gourmandise pleasures, to be taken with slow and prolonged enjoyment. In addition to slowness, the organization also focused on culinary terroir.” The essence of Petrini’s argument is that speed has become our shackles after Industrialization, fast life has changed our lifestyle and threatens our environment, we suffered because the fast life disrupts our traditions and we are forced to ingest fast-food even in our own homes. In order to escape the tediousness of fast-food, we need to revive the rich varieties and aromas of local cuisines. We could start from our kitchen with Slow Food, by cultivating taste, rather than depleting it, by advocating historical food culture and by sustaining old-fashioned food traditions. As a result, it assures us a better quality of life (2016).
Leo Babauta, the creator of Zen habits, a healthy lifestyle blog that was named one of the Top 25 blogs by Time Magazine. He states in his blog, “Abandon fast food, and all the values it brings: mass consumption, mass production, the exploitation of workers, the destruction of the environment, the destruction of small local businesses, the corporatization of our culture. I really believe the Slow Food movement is the answer to many of our problems: health and obesity, the hectic and stressful pace of modern life, and the lack of happiness in a complex and often burdensome world. This is the Anti-Fast Food Diet — a way to not only lose weight and get healthier, but to change your life to one of simplicity, moderation, and joy.” (2009). Therefore, I spend time shopping and preparing food, I shop at the local farmer’s market for my ingredients, I notice that when I am buying local, they are usually organic, which has more aroma in the food, when using these fresh ingredients, my food tastes more delicious. By spending more time enjoying food, I feel relaxed and happy.
Simonetti, a lawyer based in Rome, Italy and author of “Mangi, chi può. Meglio, meno e piano. L’ideologia di Slow Food”. He criticized that Slow Food is only for elitist because ordinary people do not have the time (2012). This is equivalent of saying that the meals are just a fuel, we are living a life that we do not have time to pay attention to what our food tastes like. In contrast, as the prominent Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh puts it, “There is a meditation exercise in which you place a raisin in your mouth. You do not eat the raisin. You meditate and allow it to sit in your mouth unmolested. The raisin plumps up and becomes a juicy fruitiness in your mouth, tempting you to bite it. This is a powerful example of how eating is different when you are truly aware of each morsel.” (2009) Hagler, a food enthusiast, she deems that meals are about more than fuel and it should be cherished. She believes that meals are about the understanding of sourcing, preparing and enjoying your food and also appreciating the company of those who dine with you (2018). By doing so, you find that life means so much more than you had expected, you are eating quality food, improving your health, spending time with your beloved family and friends, having good conversation, building up close relationship, all of which lead to happiness and joy,
Conventional wisdom has it that Slow Food’s goal of only consuming organic food is unachievable (2012). Berg agrees when she writes, “Organic farms don’t use pesticides, which means they have to throw out a greater percentage of their harvest than other farmers. The United States currently has 1 million farmers, but if we wanted to feed everyone only organic produce, we would have to increase this number to 40 million.” (Berg, 2012). In other words, she does not believe that organic agriculture could be productive enough to meet the food needs without using pesticides and also that more farmers would need to be put into production in order to meet the demand. Nevertheless, a research led by Lim Li Ching, a senior researcher with expertise on biosafety, biotechnology, sustainable agriculture and sustainable development, demonstrated that with practices such as integrated pest management, integrated nutrient management, conservation tillage, agroforestry, water harvesting in dryland areas, and livestock and aquaculture integration into farming systems, yields were not only increased to meet the demand, at the same time water usage and carbon sequestration and pesticide use were reduced, which decreased adverse effects on the environment. As a result, these approaches allow farmers to improve local food production without causing environmental damage, which ensures a better future for our children (2008).
Slow food is also often criticized by its anti-globalization view (2012). Marie Sarita Gaytan, an associate Professor at the University of Utah’s Sociology Department. She condemns that “Slow Food Movement vilifies fast food as a symbol of the interdependent global marketplace” In her view, Slow Food symbolizes fast food as a bad consequence of globalization (2004). However, Slow Food’s view is justified. Its manifesto states that “social justice should be pursued through the creation of conditions of labor respectful of man and his rights and capable of generating adequate rewards; through the practice of sympathy and solidarity”. Notably, Slow Food believes that food must be fair for everyone who works with it, including food growers, processors and servers. They against restaurants like McDonald and others that offer cheap food at the expense of their employees because the real cost of food is paid for by those people working in the industry for wages that are only slightly over than breadline (Slow Food).