Slow Food in a Fast World
by Greg Hardwick
It’s easy to find fast food. Take a drive, or turn on the TV and the advertisements can become overwhelming. Promoting convenience, fast food has become a symbol of western culture. But there is a growing force in another direction. A direction that is less instant, based on nature and allows more time to appreciate and understand a basic necessity – food.
Bob Cameron has been interested in nature and its processes for some time. He is the Managing Director of the successful Australian Business, Rockcote Enterprises. Having once described his business as being modeled on nature, it comes as no surprise to find he also has an interest in the Slow Food movement.
First created in Italy in the late 1980s as a reaction to the fast food giants, Slow Food has now spread throughout many countries including the U.S. It is also linked with the push for slower cities and better urban design, a concept that many people agree with.
Sometimes described as the “culinary wing” of the anti-globalisation movement, the Slow Food organisation has labelled itself an “eco-gastronomy faction” within the ecological movement. With over 80,000 members in more then one hundred countries, the movement aims to “preserve cultural food practices, including plants and seeds, domestic animals and traditional farming within local bioregions.”
“We have to realise we have co-evolved with nature,” Bob says.
“We have plenty of fast food available but it’s the nutrition that’s lacking. And chemically grown food lacks the important microbes and minerals we need.”
He has made his own pizza oven, where he bakes sourdough-leavened rye bread. And points out that fresh organic flour contains more micro-organisms than processed flour.
“Growing and eating your own food changes the way you value other things, like how much you consume, and what you buy,” he says.
And with the Slow Food movement gaining popularity, he tells me of a tale that motivates many aspects of his life, called The Weight of a Snowflake.
“Tell me the weight of a snowflake, a sparrow asked a wild dove. Nothing more than nothing, the dove answered. The sparrow then counted the snowflakes on a tree’s branch. Their number was exactly 3,741,952. When the next snowflake dropped onto the branch – nothing more than nothing, as you say, reminded the sparrow – the branch broke off.”
The story implies that change can occur once a critical mass is achieved. It also suggests that nothing happens without a consequence. What is the consequence of living a rushed life and relying upon fast food? And what is the consequence of more people becoming involved in a movement, which focuses upon and supports locally grown produce?
With increasing obesity levels in many affluent western nations, perhaps we all just need to slow down.