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Casandra Lesner
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The Slow food movement
November 26, 2010 - 02:47 PM
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People in the world are becoming more andmore aware of the negative effects junk food have on them.
This is how the ''slow food'' movement started takin place. Now, places like McDonald's and Burger King lost their popularity, to places where fresh ingredients are being used and where the quality of the food is focused on.
Do you think this is only a trend that will decrese in time or do you think people will start paying more attention to what they eat from now on?
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SANDHU G.S
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Re: The Slow food movement
November 28, 2010 - 01:31 AM
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Junk food will diminish from our society slowly and steadily. Now a days people are much more Conscious of living a disease free happy life.
Now organic food is gaining ground and society is increasingly depending on fresh available food due to the wide spread bad effects of Junk Food.
No doubt life expectancy has increased world over especially in third world countries, but at the same time with wrong food habits new diseases are also increasing at alarming rate , so lot of knowledge is being propagated regarding what we should eat and what we should not eat.
I think soon JUNK FOOD will be a thing of past.
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prieten47
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Re: The Slow food movement
December 18, 2010 - 06:18 AM
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Slow Food is a very interesting topic. I live in Japan which has a very healthy food tradition. Although deep frying is creeping more and more into this food style, generally lots of rice, vegetables and fish are eaten. The vegetables and rice we get in the store are also grown here in Japan, sometimes in greenhouses. Agriculture seems to be very mechanized and I suspect chemical fertilizers are probably being used. The question is whether this style of agriculture is sustainable over the longterm as oil gets scarcer. My family has joined a CSA (community supported agriculture) in which we and 18 other families receive weekly amounts of organically grown vegetables, dairy products and bread. The farmers are very friendly and organize festivals on their property and we have potluck dinners with them and othe member families. The vegetables are sometimes a bit bug-eaten and strangely shaped, but we are confident they are organic. I think we are now paying roughly what we were had been paying at the grocery store. The farmers get to keep more profit, we eat more healthily and we feel part of a community. If that is Slow Food I think it is great. BUT... I don't think junk food is going to disappear anytime soon. McDonalds has advertising muscle that can't be so easily defeated! I wonder what would happen if there was a major spike in oil prices though...
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Kate Gatto
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Re: The Slow food movement
January 7, 2011 - 09:19 PM
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Hi Everyone,
prieten47 raises a couple excellent points. First of all, the advertising "muscle" of fast food giants like McDonalds cannot be underestimated. Advertising is so linked to our collective consciousness that we often are not aware of being bombarded by advertisements, rather it becomes the norm for the background (at least background - when actively consuming, it must be something more) to our lives. Advertising strategies directed at children by fast food companies are particularly concerning to me. The documentary "The Corporation", which I highly recommend, has a chapter on this.
An example of the influence of fast food advertising to children and its effects on both the young and older can be seen in San Fransisco's recent disassociation of toys with happy meals. There was a huge backlash, even though the toys could still be sold separately. I watched a parent appear on CBC news expressing how insulted she was that the state of California was questing her ability to raise her children by imposing this rule - her children would turn out just fine whether or not they received toys with their processed food. My opinion is that it "takes a village" to raise children, and parents are up against a whole lot in our world that is often characterized by corporate interests. Any attempt to make fast food appear less "fun" is okay by me and it can't hurt to try different responses to the crisis of obesity.
Sorry for getting a little off-topic in this thread, but I do think the power of those invested in fast food have the upper hand in preventing a slow food movement.
Another related issue that bothers me is the price of organic food in the city. I admire farmers and DIY food growers, but for a city girl who does not have a whole lot of money, organic food is not always an option. I do try to buy as much produce as possible and make my own meals (as opposed to buying pre-prepared and processed) as much as possible, and I do avoid fast foods at all costs.
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prieten47
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Re: The Slow food movement
March 2, 2011 - 09:47 PM
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Dear Kate,
Sorry I didn't see your post sooner, I must have unsubscribed the thread by accident.
You are very right about the advertising power of big food corporations. It is very difficult for most people to ignore the constant jingles and billboards everywhere telling us "I'm just loving' it."
Here in Japan, people are quite food obsessed. While American-style fast food and fatty foods have made inroads, there seems to be a glimmer of hope that the Japanese are becoming more interested in healthy food and how it is produced.
Some of the stats don't sound to good (Japan only produces 40% of what it eats), but there is a trend of small farms producing more organic produce. This trend is also bolstered by the return of reitrees from the cities to the countryside and their interest in hobby farming. Unemployed young people are also being encouraged to return to the countryside and take up farming.
Yes, all this "designer produce" is more expensive than the already expensive normal produce. Here in Hokkaido some farms have opened restaurants right next to their fields which feature delicious regionally grown food. I don't know how sustainable that trend is! Their customers are usually city folk who drove out there in a car.
There is basically a battle going on in the world between relatively cheap, high chemical input food and more expensive organic food. Sometimes I worry that even the organic food, while healthier, is also not sustainable due to organic inputs taken away from other areas which also needed them.
Ecology Action advocates a small farm intensive growing method called Biointensive which says to be truly sustainable, we have to grow "green compost" crops on 60% of our garden just to restore soil fertility! We can only eat food from the remaining 40% of the garden.
Oh well, I guess gardening doesn't interest a sophisticated city girl.
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Kate Gatto
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Re: The Slow food movement
March 7, 2011 - 04:49 PM
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Hi Prieten,
Thanks for your response! Like organic/designer produce, our local food is much more expensive than the imported goods. This gets into the cost of paying farmers and laborers fair wages because of higher employment standards in the developed world. A complex issue, indeed! As a city girl, I should be making the effort to learn where my food comes from, who is involved, and what the consequences are. Being wrapped up in the bustle of daily life though, it's hard to make the time to take interest in gardening, as you mentioned. It's something I need to work on 
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prieten47
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Re: The Slow food movement
March 19, 2011 - 03:47 AM
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Dear Kate,
I just got back to Japan from a vacation in the USA. The mood here is very gloomy. Although I live way up north in Hokkaido, all it would take is a shift in the wind to send that radioactivity our direction. I went for my usual 5 kilometer walk this morning and worried the whole way about the wind direction. It just goes to show that one can make all kinds of plans to eat more healthy Slow Food grown locally, but all it takes is one nuclear accident to drop a blanket of radioactivity on a farm field, good-bye organic food. The TV news here is surreal. All the top politicians in the government are wearing (very clean) overalls instead of their usual coat and ties. I guess that's supposed to make us think they are "handling" the crisis.
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