Slow Foods

We live in strange times. Life goes on so fast that people forget to eat, forget how to act rationally, and even forget to raise their kids. Funny I should be mentioning this because I'm an extreme Type A personality. But some things should be slow, especially food.

Fast food will kill you. We all know that, we've seen the movie, so no need to beat a dead horse. Some Italian back in the 80s started the slow food movement, something opposed to fast food.

Everyone in the movement has their reasons. Keep in mind, I only speak for me, so if you hear from someone else in the movement, they might sound a lot different from what I'm going to tell you.

Slow food is first and foremost a lifestyle. Slow it down. Pick up some fruits and vegetables from the local farmer's market and enjoy them.

Slow food will drastically help the environment. By buying local foods, we won't be wasting so much money on oil from trucking it all over the continent. The movement supports food grown without pesticides. Pesticides, no matter how hard farmers try, will drain into the local rivers and streams. That's not a good thing. By not using pesticides, we'll have less pollution.

Slow food protects local cultures. What if everyone in the world ate McDonalds and Burger King and forgot their local food customs? That scares me. The slow food movement combats this.

Slow food will protect your stomach. We have evolved into eating different things. Food allergies are often caused by your ancestors simply not eating that food. People who are allergic to cow's milk may have only had cow's milk in their culture for the past a hundred years. That's not enough. Luckily for me, I have enough European blood that I'm not allergic to cow's milk, because I love milk, cheese, ice cream, and milkshakes. But you see what I'm getting at.

Slow food will help fight obesity. By not rushing your food, by enjoying it instead of wolfing it down so you could get back to what you were doing, you are giving your body time to actually digest what you're eating.

So let's slow down at the dinner table. Let's buy from local farmers, shop at our local farmer's market. Let's eat what's in season and avoid genetically modified food. Let's buy organic when possible. The results in your life may surprise you. I guarantee you that at the very least, your stomach and intestines will thank you.

For more information, if you're an American, check out Slow Food USA. If not, check out slowfood.com which unfortunately is only in six languages so far.

And I'll leave you with one fact that will probably scare you, because it scares me. In the last one hundred years, 30,000 vegetable varieties have become extinct, and one more is lost every six hours. Later on, I'll tie this in to why I'm against unchecked globalism in general.