We live in a fast-paced society, where many measures of success are based on quantity over quality. People overwork themselves and don’t focus on living a mindful lifestyle. In the process of not living consciously, we neglect our diets and our mental state. These functions get put on the back burner, and we go through life almost in a zombie state.
In the late ’80s, a group of Italian journalists produced a journal that promoted a healthy lifestyle and raised the provocative idea that society was not living their “best lives.” The constant theme was that humanity was living a far too fast-paced lifestyle. The manifesto talked about “Fast Foods” and how they related to a “fast life.” Through these realizations about Society. They decided to coin the phrase ‘Slow Foods”. The writing was highly controversial and was put under pressure by different political groups. The Ideas of a slow lifestyle was mocked and made fun of or thought of as possibly being “weak.”
In 1996 the Slow Food Organization held their first experimental Salone del Gusto in Turin, debuting the Ark of Taste project. The Salone went on to become a large event and one of the most important international fairs dedicated to artisan, sustainable food, and the small-scale producers that safeguard local traditions and high-quality products.
Today the Slow Food Movement is still going strong. Of course, we have an even faster-paced lifestyle than that of the ’80s. Many people involved in the Slow Food Movement are dedicated to changing consumers’ mentality and have had some profound effects on mindfulness practices worldwide. There continues to be a significant crossover in the Slow Food Movement and Politics, and has continued to grow as far as environmental factors are concerned.
Slow Foods can be thought of in terms of the Social Conflict theory. The more that we continue to eat in unhealthy ways and don’t eat consciously, our societies will continue to decline in health. Health care professionals will continue to benefit from people being sick.
Leitch, A. (2019). Slow Food and the Politics of Virtuous Globalization. In C. Counihan, P. V. Esterik, & A. Julier (Authors), Food and culture: A reader (pp. 493-509). New York, NY: Routledge.
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