Slow Food SF

Slow Food SF

Slow Food is an idea; a way of living and a way of eating. It is a global, grassroots movement with thousands of members around the world. Slowfood links the pleasure of food with a commitment to community and the environment. Slowfood pays attention to how food is sourced, respects local cooking and eating traditions, and tries to be fair to producers, to farm animals.

Slow can involve eating small amounts of meat from animals that were compassionately reared. ^[1] ^[2] Slow food can also be vegetarian but this isn't typical. ^[3]

How far is slow food healthy? I came across at least one supposedly slow food recipe with beef suet (which has too much saturated fat) wine (which in the UK is almost always imported). The recipe also needs slow cooking (which uses too much fossil fuel). ^[4] Remember not all traditional ways of cooking are healthy by today's standards.

You can try to increase the locally sourced food you eat and that will help you reduce your carbon footprint. Even foods like olive oil can be sourced from relatively near. If you live in the UK or in Northern Europe you can get olive oil from Southern Europe. In North America you can get olive oil from somewhere like California or Florida.

Nobody seriously tries to eat only locally sourced food. For people living in Northern Europe and other areas with similar climate that would mean doing without tea, coffee, chocolate, rice, oranges and very many foods we have come to regard as staples. There are also problems over foods like tomatoes, peppers, cucumber. Which needs more fossil fuel? Locally grown tomatoes from heated greenhouses or imported tomatoes? I don't know.

One way to reduce your carbon footprint is to buy relatively cheap items, thast way you can be sure the total cost including fossil fuel used to prepare your food and get it to you isn't high. Expensive foods that food snobs buy are more likely to have a high carbon footprint.