Lesson 3: Food
In this lesson we look at food, and ways to save money and the Earth when buying, storing and preparing it. We will look at the Slow Food movement, which is rapidly growing in Europe, and then consider suggestions on alternatives to expensive dining out (or cheap junk food).
Finally, we will consider a few simple ways of growing some of your own food, which as we saw in an earlier lesson, is good for the environment as well as your wallet.
Fast food/slow food
In 1986 in Italy a fast food giant wanted to open an outlet in a mediaeval square in Rome. Horrified at the prospect of their beautiful square being desecrated by the fast food outlet, which would have looked utterly out of place, the citizens protested, and eventually won the battle to keep the fast food giant out. The protests were organised by Carlo Petrini, and in 1989 in Paris the 'Slow Food Movement' was born out of the manifesto he wrote (Slow Food).
The Slow Food Movement is now rapidly growing with members in over 100 countries, who want food that is clean, high quality, seasonal and regional, and who don't want bland, highly processed food that is the same in every outlet around the world.
Slow food doesn't necessarily have to be slow to cook, but it always puts quality first. Slow food restaurants feature regional specialties, change their menus according to the seasons, and support their local farmers, especially the organic ones. You don't need to go to an expensive restaurant in Italy to eat 'slow food', because you can cook it yourself at home, as you will learn later in this lesson.
'Slow food' features seasonal ingredients, which are usually cheaper and always fresher than foods that are out of season where you live, and therefore have to be transported long distances (often from the other side of the world). As we saw in Lesson 1, if we eat locally grown foods the savings to the environment are enormous. Which would you rather eat - a tomato ripened on the vine and picked yesterday, or a tomato picked green, shipped half-way around the world, and 'ripened' during weeks or months in cold storage?
The Slow Food Movement has branched out in recent years to become the Slow Town Movement, with over 30 towns (mostly in Italy so far) signing a charter that goes far beyond barring fast food outlets. These are towns that want to put quality back into all aspects of their lives, and not just food (Slow Towns).
If you want to do the same, you don't need to move to a Slow Town, you just need a Slow House!
Having a Slow House means looking for quality in everything: quality time with the family, quality food, quality entertainment, quality exercise, and so on. And most of those things not only do not cost money, but can save money, and save the Earth as well.
It's about living deliberately instead of being swept along in the fast lane with everyone else. If you really enjoy the stress, the lack of conscious thought, lack of time and all the rest involved in being in the fast lane, then fine. But most don't.
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
Henry David Thoreau, Walden
You don't need to go to the woods to live deliberately. You just need to think about how you live, what you do, and what you eat. Most people these days don't seem to care about those things, and if you don't care either, that's up to you. You can take whatever suggestions you want from this course and leave the rest.
