Families are constantly running around - I know mine does. My father picks up my younger brother from school only to rush him home to complete homework. While my brother is completing homework my father drives my fifteen year old sister to a friend's house. By the time he returns it is time to take my brother to soccer practice. However, it is only five o'clock and my brother and father are both beginning to get hungry, but there's no time for dinner. My father decides to pick up a "quick" meal at one of the nearby fast food restaurants. Wendy's, KFC, McDonald's, and Burger King all within five minutes of each other and my house; there's so many options there's always a variety to choose from. But is there really a variety? After all, fast food - no matter what the restaurant name - is unhealthy.
In a life where there is never enough time - fast food seems to be the only option. I must say my family eats home cooked meals together more often than we have in the past, but unfortunately it isn't every night.
Stephen Schneider discusses how the Slow Food movement can be practiced and made effective at the dinner table, in the comfort of your own home. What is the Slow Food movement? In Good, Clean, Fair: The Rhetoric of the Slow Food Movement, Stephen Schneider explains this new "social movement." The phrase "slow food" was created by Italians Petrini and Arcigola who protested the opening of McDonald's. Even though there are currently only 80,000 members worldwide, the slow food organization devotes energy to "building the kind of world we must want to live in (395).
Throughout the academic article Schneider continuously references the three principles of slow food: good, clean, and fair.
Good = "tasty diverse and is produced in such a way as to maximize its flavor and connections to a geographic and culture region (97)" (390).
Clean = "sustainable and helps to preserve rather than destroy the environment (114)" (390).
Fair = "produced in socially sustainable ways, with an emhasis on social justice and fair wages (135)" (390).
I couldn't help but think these three principles are similar to my group's own research question, "Is eating organically healthier, safer, and affordable?" Similar to the three basic principles of slow food, it seems as if my group is trying to define three principles of organic food. Overall, our group's goal is to inform people on organic food, just like Schneider is trying to inform people on slow food.
In Schneider's article he quotes Petrini, "[Food] is far more than a simple produce to be consumed: it is happiness, identity, culture, pleasure, conviviality, nutrition, local economy, survival" (Slow Food Nation 166). If people began to see food as more than just a "produce to be consumed" than they will start thinking more about what they eat and how to shop for healthier food products. Just like slow food, if people expand their knowledge on organic food then they might be more willing to eat organically.
Food is a major part of our lives - it's who we are and how we survive. People need to start considering how food affects them. Since my group is sharing information on organic food this could be a first step. Just because the days go by fast, doesn't mean we have to conform to fast food just to keep up with the time. In the long run eating slow food will help us live a longer, happier, and healthier life. Schneider states, "the act of slowing down forces us to ask how fast we need to live our lives" (398).