Slow food provides fewer calories, more satisfaction for patient diners

Ben Sadkowski/Staff Writer

Fast food is a common term in today’s society, especially here in the United States, where it is unbelievably easy to head to your local McDonald’s for a meal that is ready for you as soon as you reach the pickup window.
However, a movement begun in 1989 has quickly been gaining momentum in recent years. Slow Food is the term of this beast and its goal is to counteract fast food chains and the typical fast food lifestyle. Currently, the website www.slowfood.com boasts over 100,000 members in 132 countries. Its philosophy is simple; to create a healthy and fair way to create good food to people who are conscious about the food that they eat. The view is that people are becoming disinterested in the foods that they eat, and their health is taking the hit. Slow Food follows a philosophy of coexistence with the planet, choosing methods that do not harm the planet or encroach upon animal welfare.
Kamyar Enshayan, the director for the center of energy and environmental education at UNI and founder of the Buy Fresh Buy Local movement here in Iowa, has his opinions on the Slow Food movement. “There are many benefits. Obviously it’s fresh, but more than anything else it’s a connection between you who eat the food and people who grew it, people who prepared it, story behind it, history of it, all of that. It makes us appreciate something that seems very ordinary and our culture has demeaned it by calling it fast food,” Enshayan said.
Enshayan also mentioned economic benefits concerning slow food.
“Of course there’s economic benefits too because you’re spending your money supporting other local businesses that are right here near you. I would say fundamentally the slow food movement is about appreciating where food comes from,” he said.
Finally, he expressed his disbelief concerning the whole situation concerning food.
“It is really amazing that we have to even talk about this, in order words, you would think we would never take food for granted, that we would always be grateful for it and we would be very careful about how our food is grown and how its treated but we’ve gone so far away from the source of our food that we’ve got to talk about it. We have to have a movement to revitalize it,” he said. Personally, I adore the idea of a slow food movement. Because of my parent’s (especially my Mom’s) strong beliefs on eating at home as much as possible and with organic ingredients, I enjoy a far better diet than I would should we go out to eat much more often. The idea of promoting this sort of eating lifestyle not only in the United States but internationally is a fantastic idea and I hope to hear more of it .