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Slow Food MovementCan it change eating habits?

The Slow Food movement began more than 20 years

ago with a protest against the opening of the first

McDonald’s in Rome. Today the campaign to

elbow out fast food has grown into an international

movement with adherents in more than 140 countries. Initiated by

young Italian leftists who appreciated their country’s regional

cooking, the movement has focused on preserving endangered

foods, promoting local cooking traditions and farming without

polluting. Recently, its increasingly political rhetoric blames indus-

trialized agriculture and the fast-food industry for environmental

degradation and the loss of biodiversity as well as the waning of

good, healthy eating. Amid growing concern about rising rates of

childhood obesity in the West, some school systems have respond-

ed by switching to local, fresh ingredients. But critics say Slow

Food’s message is just for rich gourmets and doesn’t appreciate

modern agriculture’s higher yields and lowered food costs.

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THE ISSUES..........................75

CHRONOLOGY ....................83

BACKGROUND ....................84

CURRENT SITUATION ............88

AT ISSUE ............................89

OUTLOOK ..........................92

BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................94

THE NEXT STEP ..................95

THISREPORT

Kansas poultry breeder Frank Reese’s heritage turkeysare among several traditional U.S. foods in

danger of disappearing.

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CQ Researcher • Jan. 26, 2007 • www.cqresearcher.comVolume 17, Number 4 • Pages 73-96

RECIPIENT OF SOCIETY OF PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISTS AWARD FOR

EXCELLENCE ◆ AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION SILVER GAVEL AWARD

74 CQ Researcher

THE ISSUES

75 • Is Slow Food better thanconventionally grown food?• Should schools radicallychange student lunches?• Would reducing farmsubsidies improve our food?

BACKGROUND

84 The Brothers McDonaldTwo California restaurateursmade history under the“golden arches” in 1948.

86 Rise of Slow FoodProtests over a new Mc-Donald’s in Rome launchedthe movement in 1986.

87 From Organic toGourmetJulia Child took cookinginto a new era in 1963.

CURRENT SITUATION

88 Subsidy ReformSome Slow Food advocateswant subsidies for sustain-able farming.

90 Junk Food in SchoolsFast food is a loomingpresence in U.S. schools.

91 New LegislationNutrition advocates call forupdated standards for allfoods sold in schools.

OUTLOOK

92 Scrapple Anyone?Slow Food advocates sayhumble, traditional foodsshould be savored.

SIDEBARS AND GRAPHICS

76 Mapping America’s Regional FoodsA map shows regions wheresome indigenous foods areendangered.

77 Rescuing Traditional FoodsAround the WorldThey include sheep in Norwayand blue egg hens in Chile.

80 Rescuing Threatened Traditional U.S. ProductsThe list includes Navajosheep and salt oysters.

83 ChronologyKey events since 1933.

84 British Schools Won’tServe French FriesCelebrity chef’s new lunchmenu causes some indigestion.

87 Slow Food AdvocatesQuestion Food LabelsCan “indoor” cows be “grass fed”?

89 At IssueIs organic food better for you?

90 Slow Food Dining Sardinian-StyleLucky journalists enjoy afive-course feast.

FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

93 For More InformationOrganizations to contact.

94 BibliographySelected sources used.

95 The Next StepAdditional articles.

95 Citing CQ ResearcherSample bibliography formats.

SLOW FOOD MOVEMENT

Cover: Courtesy Good Shepherd Turkey Ranch

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Slow Food Movement

THE ISSUEST his past Thanksgiving,

most Americans whosat down to eat turkey

ate exactly the same kind.That familiar Butterball turkeyhas been bred since the 1960sto maximize breeders’ profits.It grows to market size with-in weeks, instead of months,and has an enormous breastto feed the American prefer-ence for white meat.

Compared to turkeys bredup until the 1920s, the Broad-breasted White, as the breedis officially known, has suchan ample breast that it can-not be relied on to mate nat-urally. Its legs are so shortit can barely run or fly. Toprevent diseases in thecrowded, confined spaceswhere commercial turkeys areraised, they’re routinely fedantibiotics, contributing toconcerns about the rise ofantibiotic-resistant bacteria. 1

But most crucial for theperson about to enjoy oneof the most festive meals ofthe year, today’s “industrial”turkeys have lost the com-plex taste and texture of earlier vari-eties, say Slow Food chefs, farmersand consumers in the growing nichemarket for so-called heritage turkeys.

Now discerning diners have achoice, largely thanks to Frank Reese,a farmer in Lindsborg, Kan., who rais-es turkey breeds that were popularin the late 19th century. In the mid-1980s, he recalls, “I got to a pointwhere I realized all the breeders [ofheritage turkeys] I got turkeys fromwere dying on me. I realized if Icouldn’t find a way to get into themarket, these breeds would disappearoff the face of the Earth.”

As Reese tells the story, the “Lordanswered” his dilemma by sendingMarian Burros, a, New York Times foodwriter, who wrote an article declaringhis turkeys the best in America. Reesewas suddenly flooded with orders. Asmall family farmer at the time, Reesedidn’t even have a way to process cred-it cards. The U.S. chapter of Slow FoodInternational, which sees fast food as athreat to America’s food heritage andworks to preserve endangered foods,came to his aid. With their help pro-cessing orders and marketing on the In-ternet, Reese has gone from selling afew hundred turkeys in the mid-1980s

to 8,000 last year. And he ex-panded his operation fromone family farm to seven.

The growing market in-terest in heritage turkeys isprobably the biggest successstory for the American wingof the Slow Food move-ment, which is trying to savesome of the 63 percent ofindigenous crop varieties thathave disappeared from cul-tivation since Europeans firstset foot on the North Ameri-can continent. Their list ofplant and animal varietiesthat need saving includes:endangered oysters that livein the waters off Cape May,N.J., Ozette potatoes fromthe Northwest and wild ricecultivated by Native Ameri-cans in Washington state. 2

The international SlowFood movement, launched inthe mid-1980s by a small groupof leftist Italian epicureans, wasoriginally aimed at preservingthe local foods and tradition-al cooking styles of Italy, thencoming under siege from fast-food chains.

The U.S. movement is gain-ing adherents at a time whenfast food is coming under

increasing criticism and Americans arediscovering the joys of ethnic andgourmet cooking and eating. Salsa hassurpassed ketchup in popularity, andbalsamic vinegar — once obtainableonly by traveling to Italy — is now astaple in supermarkets across the coun-try. Since 1963, when a small, devot-ed audience first viewed Julia Child’s“The French Chef,” cooking showshave grown into a popular staple ofAmerican television — from the pop-ular ’90s-era “Frugal Gourmet” to today’sperky cooking superstar Rachel Ray.

Indeed, well-prepared, exotic foodis no longer the province of the gourmet

BY SARAH GLAZER

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A Libyan date seller joined more than 8,000 farmers,breeders, fishermen and food producers from 140

countries at Slow Food International’s Terra MadreFood Summit last October in Turin, Italy. With more

than 80,000 members worldwide, the Slow Foodmovement is adopting increasingly political rhetoric,

blaming industrialized monoculture and the fast-foodindustry for environmental degradation, loss ofbiodiversity and the waning of healthy eating.

76 CQ Researcher

elite, argues David Kamp in his 2006book, The United States of Arugula:How We Became a Gourmet Nation.He recounts how America progressedfrom the sickly sweet Jell-O salads ofthe 1940s and ’50s to a nation muchcloser to France in its preoccupationwith sophisticated food. 3

Meanwhile, recent books and filmshave exposed what some see as thedistasteful underbelly of the U.S. foodindustry. Fast Food Nation: The DarkSide of the All-American Meal, EricSchlosser’s best-selling 2001 exposé ofthe fast-food industry, charged that fastfood endangers health and robs foodof its natural taste. It recently was

turned into a movie. Now an evenwider audience will see a food-industryexecutive sniffing a Q-tip doused inartificial flavor and exclaiming, “Wow,it tastes like it’s right off the grill!” 4

A raft of other food-industry exposéshave also been released in recent years,including Food Fight: The Inside Storyof the Food Industry, America’s Obesi-ty Crisis, and What We Can Do AboutIt; Diet for a Dead Planet: How theFood Industry Is Killing Us and FoodPolitics: How the Food Industry Influ-ences Nutrition and Health.

Perhaps responding to such revela-tions, the Slow Food movement —boasting more than 80,000 members

worldwide — wants to become a muchmore radical political force, judging fromthe rhetoric at its international confer-ence last October in Turin, Italy. 5

“Good, clean and fair” is the newslogan of the movement, founder CarloPetrini told 8,000 delegates from some140 countries ranging from Mongolianyak-cheese makers to California or-ganic farmers.

Until now, “good” — as in delicious— was the movement’s primary moti-vating force and indeed the focus of crit-ics who see Slow Food as an elite groupof wealthy gourmands. But increasingly,the movement emphasizes the last twoelements, with far more political impli-cations. “Clean” refers to food that hasbeen grown with sustainable-farmingpractices — without pesticides and fer-tilizers that degrade the environment.“Fair” means food raised by producers— whether farmworkers or owners —who are compensated fairly.

In taking up the cry for sustainableagriculture, the movement has alsowaded into some hot-button issues —blaming farm subsidies and geneticallymodified foods for contributing to theshrinking diversity of plants and ani-mals used for food. 6

In the United States, where expertsare alarmed by skyrocketing rates of child-hood obesity, the movement has focusedon school cafeterias as its most promis-ing training ground for expanding chil-dren’s palates and building a demandfor local ingredients. 7Activists have helpedseveral school systems switch from fast-food, deep-fried offerings to menus em-phasizing fresh, local ingredients.

But that movement has a long rowto hoe, judging by the opposition inEngland to the government’s new pol-icy banning potato chips — “crisps”— in school lunches and requiringmore vegetables. Many British childrenhave refused to eat the new, healthymenu designed by celebrity chef JamieOliver. And students in Berkeley,Calif., also revolted when faced withvegetarian pizza. 8 (See sidebar, p. 84.)

SLOW FOOD MOVEMENT

Mapping America’s Regional Foods

To preserve America’s biodiversity, the U.S. Slow Food movement has created a map of North America based on regions — or “food nations” — where certain traditional foods are at risk of extinction. The group aims to educate consumers and chefs about America’s diminishing agricultural biodiversity and promotes conservation strategies for those crops. Up to 63 percent of North America’s native crop varieties have disappeared from cultivation since European arrival on the continent.

Source: Slow Food USA

Regional ‘Food Nations’ of North America


The Slow Food movement stressesthat it’s about the pleasures of thetable, not morality or health. In thisspirit, advocates prefer to promote thedelicious tastes of regional meats, fish,fruits and vegetables by exposingchefs and consumers to their wondersand by encouraging farmers and breed-

ers to raise endangered varieties.In that vein, the American media “still

regard Slow Food as a dining club,”Michael Pollan, author of the 2006 bookThe Omnivore’s Dilemma, told Ameri-can delegates in Turin. His book laysthe blame for America’s highly processedfast-food culture in large part on gov-

ernment subsidies for a few commoditycrops like corn and soybeans. “The ideathat pleasure and politics occupy thesame room is hard to swallow” — atleast for Americans, said Pollan. As ajournalist-turned-activist, he is helpingto organize a Slow Food conference inSan Francisco next year.

Rescuing Traditional Foods Around the World

Source: Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity

The Slow Food movement is working to save dozens of traditional foods around the world from extinction, from lentils in France and sheep in Norway to blue egg hens in Chile and mustard oil pickles in India.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Pozegaca plum slatkoSack cheese

Croatia

Giant Istrian ox

Hungary

Mangalica sausage

Poland

Polish mead

Middle East

Lebanon

Darfiyeh cheeseKechek el fouqara cheese

Latin America

Argentina

Andean cornAndean potatoes

Bolivia

Pando Brazil nutPotosí llama

Brazil

Barù nutCanapù bean

Jucara palm heartSateré Mawé native warana fruit

Chile

Blue egg henPurén white strawberries

Robinson Crusoe Island seafood

Dominican Republic

Sierra cafetalera coffee

Mexico

Chinantla vanillaTehuacán amaranth

Peru

Pampacorral sweet potatoesSan Marcos Andean fruit

Venezuela

Barlovento cacao

AfricaEgypt

Siwa dates

Madagascar

Andasibe red riceMananara vanilla

Mauritania

Imraguen bottarga fish eggs

Morocco

Argan oil

AsiaArmenia

Motal cheese

China

Tibetan Plateau yak cheese

India

Dehra dun basmati riceOrissa mustard oil pickles

Malaysia

Bario riceRimbàs black pepper

Western Europe

France

Bigorre black pigPardailhan black turnipRennes coucou chicken

Saint-Flour Planèze golden lentil

Greece

Mavrotragano wineNiotiko cheese

Netherlands

Aged artisan goudaChaam hen

Oosterschelde lobster

Norway

Sørøya Island stockfishSunnmøre cured and smoked herring

Villsau sheep

Spain

Euskal Txerria pigGanxet beanJiloca saffron

Tolosa black bean

United Kingdom

Artisan Somerset cheddarCornish pilchardFal River oyster

Old Gloucester beef

Central and Eastern Europe

Belarus

Rosson wild fruits and infusions

Selected Endangered Traditional Foods

78 CQ Researcher

Indeed, most of the movement’s worktakes place through its chapters, knownas “convivia” to emphasize the convivialnature of eating together. And judgingby a meeting of the Martha’s Vineyardconvivium last August, the event wasmore about enjoying the homegrownheirloom tomatoes at its potluck dinnerand sponsoring public tastings of islandfood than about trying to change na-tional agricultural policy.

Pollan recently urgeda new direction, arguingin The Nation magazinethat people who care pas-sionately about foodshould get involved inreforming the arcane farmbill being considered byCongress this year. 9

Among other things, heargued, it is expected toperpetuate vast cornsubsidies that largely ben-efit a handful of agricul-tural interests and en-courage the overuse ofproducts like corn syrupin food manufacturing,contributing to America’sobesity epidemic. 10

But while the Ameri-can Slow Food move-ment supports movingthe nation away fromsuch subsidies and to-ward sustainable farming,lobbying Congress won’tbe its focus, says ErikaLesser, executive directorof Slow Food USA. The U.S. movementhas grown rapidly — from 1,500 mem-bers in 2000 to 15,000 today — “be-cause people want to feel good aboutdoing good.” Unlike environmental ad-vocacy with its “guilt and dire predic-tions,” she says, “we’re trying to tap intoa collective desire to live well — but itshouldn’t be limited to just a few.”

Some critics wonder if a movementthat attracts “posh” people interestedin rare and frequently expensive types

of food has much to offer the major-ity. Others argue that the modern agri-cultural techniques criticized by SlowFood have banished hunger for manylow-income families by making foodfar more affordable and frequently justas healthy as food raised to be envi-ronmentally sustainable.

As the movement tries to changepoor eating habits and the farm prac-

tices that feed them, here are someof the questions being debated:

Is Slow Food better than conven-tionally grown food?

“Eating is the ultimate environmentalact,” chef Alice Waters, founder of thelegendary Chez Panisse restaurant inBerkeley, Calif., recently told the SlowFood conference in Italy.

And indeed that has long been themain rallying cry of the most well-

known effort to farm without hurtingthe environment — the organic foodmovement. Like proponents of organicfarming, Slow Food advocates arguethat food is better for the environmentif it doesn’t degrade soil and water withpesticides and fertilizer and avoids theoveruse of antibiotics in animals. Manyof the foods championed by Slow Foodadvocates are grown along these prin-

ciples even if they don’tcarry an official government-approved organic label. In-deed, most of the foods thatSlow Food has singled outfor safeguarding are notgrown with organic meth-ods because government-certification requirements aretoo burdensome, the groupnotes on its Web site. 11

Organic food is “slightlybetter nutritionally, becauseit’s grown on better soil,”says Marion Nestle, profes-sor of nutrition, food stud-ies and public health at NewYork University. Some or-ganic advocates prefer or-ganic food on the groundsthat it contains little or nopesticide residue, but as Pol-lan notes, “remarkably littleresearch” has been done toassess the effects of regularexposure to the government-accepted levels of pesticideor growth hormone. 12

Indeed, “The organicmovement has overclaimed

on the nutrition benefits,” says KathDalmany, deputy coordinator of SUS-TAIN, a London-based coalition of 100organizations interested in food and theenvironment. “There are some mi-cronutrient benefits [vitamins and min-erals] within traditional food varieties,but there’s some debate about whetherit’s the traditional variety or organicmethod that gives that difference.”

When produce is local and fresh, asat farmers’ markets where the peas have

SLOW FOOD MOVEMENT

Organic farmer Denise Walton displays smoked pork from herfarm in Scotland during Slow Food International’s October 2006conference in Turin, Italy, as Alan Roe, development director ofSlow Food UK, pours British wine. The group strives to educate

the public about the joys of eating tasty, locally raised food.

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been picked that morning, the sweet-ness is something that can’t be foundin industrial varieties, especially thosegrown for shipping rather than taste.Organic food is not always better, saysWaters, who pioneered the restaurantwave in sourcing fresh vegetables andfruits. The crucial variable, she says, isripeness: “If you get a ripe commercialtomato, it will taste better than an un-ripe organic tomato. If you get a ripe,organic tomato, it is one of the mostincredible taste experiences of your life.”

Taste, of course, is personal. Takethe heritage turkey. “The flavor is muchbigger than you’ve experienced in thepast,” says Don Schrider, communica-tions director of the American LivestockBreeds Conservancy in Pittsboro, N.C.,devoted to saving endangered breeds.

But is it worth $4.25-$10 per poundvs. the $1.50 per pound for a super-market turkey? “If you can’t taste thedifference between a $6 and $50 dol-lar bottle of wine, it’s not worth tast-ing,” says Schrider. There have beenno scientific taste tests of heritageturkey where subjects are blinded, ac-cording to R. Scott Beyer, agriculturalextension specialist in poultry for thestate of Kansas.

Some experts are concerned, how-ever, that the nation’s dependence onconventional industrial farming mayalso be robbing Americans of theirhealth. Experts suspect, for instance,that the nation’s dependence on in-dustrialized farming has contributed tothe recent increase in E. coli out-breaks. Since September, lettuce fromTaco Bell restaurants and bacteria-taint-ed spinach and tomatoes have madehundreds of people sick and killedthree. Over the past 30 years, instancesof food-borne illness — often linkedto fresh produce — have increased.

Although the reason is uncertain,Christopher Braden, chief of the out-break response and surveillance teamfor enteric diseases at the Centers forDisease Control and Prevention (CDC),has surmised, “You have these huge

processors and distributors that producetens of thousands of pounds of a par-ticular produce in a particular day. Ifsomething goes wrong with that pro-duce, you’ve got a big problem, where-as with small farmers if there is a prob-lem it’s much more limited.” 13

To be sure, outbreaks also have beenblamed on small farmers. For instance,an outbreak of fatal E. coli in school-children in Wales in 2005 was traced tolocally produced meat products. 14

Another major concern is the mono-culture practiced by industrial-size farm-ing operations. Raising a variety ofplants and animals provides insuranceagainst a disease to which one varietymay be particularly vulnerable, helpingto guard against a single virus wipingout a breed of animal or widely plant-ed crop. “As you narrow the gene pool,it’s a worrisome issue,” says Beyer.

Greater biodiversity also provides bet-ter, more varied taste. “The apples weeat aren’t the kind that are best for cider.We want them tart,” says Patty West, anethno-ecologist with the Center for Sus-tainable Environments, at Northern Ari-zona University in Flagstaff. She has beeninterviewing a farmer in his 90s aboutthe apple trees on his homestead thatwere cut down years ago to make roomfor varieties that produced more apples,but that may have sacrificed taste.

“When you look at dwindling va-rieties of foods, there’s the genetic costof losing seeds and the human costof losing flavors, and nobody can re-ally measure that,” West says. Althoughnatural selection continually weeds outcertain varieties, she says, “A lot ofnatural selection happened because[certain varieties] were marketable andtransportable, not because of taste.”

Conventional farming methods pro-duce higher yields, cheaper food and arebetter for poor countries fighting wide-spread hunger, say some critics of theSlow Food and organic food movements.Rob Lyons, a health writer for the Britishonline magazine spiked, has argued thatorganic yields are 20-50 percent lower

than conventional farming because or-ganic farmers can’t use fertilizers or pes-ticides when they need them.

“Organic farming, because it’s muchless productive, must take up more land— including wilderness,” he says. Iron-ically, that would contribute to loss ofbiodiversity, since natural habitat wouldhave to be destroyed to increase theamount of land used for organic farm-ing. “If we went over to an organic sys-tem, production would drop and peoplewould have less choice,” he says.

Lesser of Slow Food USA concedesthere isn’t enough available open landto raise all of the animals eaten formeat in this country on grass pasture,which Slow Food adherents general-ly consider the ideal environmentalsystem because grazing animals fertil-ize the soil naturally and produce lessfatty, tastier meat. “But it would alsobe OK if we ate a little less meat” thatwas of higher quality, she says.

Slow Food’s emphasis on thinkinglocally leads to a reluctance to buyproduce from Third World marketsand to an “antidevelopment ethos,”charges Ceri Dingle, director of WORLD-write, a London-based organization thatfosters cultural exchange betweenyouths in Europe and in the develop-ing world.

Dingle says that even when SlowFood supports indigenous producersof dates in Libya or nuts in Mali —whose representatives attended theSlow Food conference in Turin —their life is far from the romanticizedideal envisioned by Westerners. “Mostdevelopment worldwide is organic notby choice but because that’s all they’vegot,” she says. “They haven’t accessto new technology or new, geneticallymodified strains of guava.”

Should schools radically changethe lunches they provide?

The Slow Food movement viewsschools as a prime locus for revamp-ing the way people think about food.Researchers find that children must be

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exposed to different tastes at an earlyage to develop a taste for them. (Infact, by age 4 or 5, almost all childrenbecome “neophobic,” developing anaversion to new foods — and to veg-etables, in particular (perhaps an evo-lutionary protection against poisonousplants). 15

More variety on the plate will leadto more variety in foods grown, advo-cates hope, as children grow up to bemore discerning consumers who de-mand local produce. Cecily Upton, co-ordinator of the Slow Food in Schoolsprogram, which oversees about 30 schoolprojects in the United States, suggeststhat educating kids about local foodsmay turn them into advocates for localfarms as adults. Through visits to farmsand other educational programs, chil-dren learn the carrot they eat “comesfrom Farmer Bob who owns the farmdown the street,” she says. “So whena big mega-development wants to kick

Farmer Bob out, the community has amuch stronger tie to Farmer Bob.”

Rising childhood obesity also has fo-cused more concern on the amount offat in many school lunches and thepresence of junk-food vending machinesin schools. The prevalence of over-weight school-age children has almosttripled since the 1970s, according to theCDC, reaching 19 percent among chil-dren ages 6-11 and 17 percent amongteens 12-19. 16

“Rates of obesity are now so highamong American children that manyexhibit abnormalities formerly seenonly in adults,” according to NewYork University’s Nestle. These includehigh blood sugar due to adult-onsetdiabetes, high blood cholesterol andhigh blood pressure in younger andyounger children — a “national scan-dal” in Nestle’s view because all ofthe conditions can be prevented byeating better diets. 17

Chez Panisse founder Waters, whois also vice president of Slow FoodInternational, contends that the grow-ing obesity problem is evidence thatcurrent school lunches are unhealthy.“We have to do something radical —like we did when we brought physicaleducation into the public school system,”she argues. “We’re in a much moreserious crisis now.”

Waters believes that like physical ed-ucation, eco-gastronomy, as she calls it,should be part of children’s education.“It’s not just changing the food in theschool,” she insists. “We need a courseof study that teaches children about theimportance of food in their lives andhelps them to make the right kinds ofdecisions once they understand whatthe consequences are.”

Waters pioneered this concept withan “edible school yard” at the MartinLuther King, Jr. School in Berkeley,where middle-school children grow their

SLOW FOOD MOVEMENT

S low Food USA is dedicated to preserving the six foodsbelow as part of its effort to restore America’s agricul-tural biodiversity and counter what it perceives as the

negative effects of biotechnology and industrial farming. Thegroup seeks to stabilize production techniques, promote arti-san products, establish stringent production standards and guar-antee a viable future for traditional foods.

American Raw-Milk Cheeses — With U.S. raw-milk cheese-makers challenged by a lack of regional identity and frequentchanges in health and food-safety regulations, Slow Food USAdecided to focus their first rescue efforts on saving thesecheeses. The group works with about 30 producers to im-prove American raw-milk cheeses and create a network ofcheesemakers.

Anishinaabeg Manoomin (wild rice) — The indigenouswild rice harvested by the Anishinaabeg Indians of the GreatLakes region provides a bountiful harvest that can be storedduring the winter. Slow Food USA says manoomin is threat-ened by contamination from genetically engineered rice species,mass-cultivation techniques that do not observe Native Ameri-can traditions and recreational zoning and dams that destroythe region’s natural ecosystems.

Cape May Salt Oyster — Slow Food USA supports grow-ing salt oysters in Delaware Bay in an effort to maintain a lowenvironmental-impact cultivation system. Developed in France,

the technique allows oyster sprats to be produced in hatch-eries and placed on nets stretching across the shallows ex-posed to the tide, thereby feeding naturally by filtering oceanwater without the addition of artificial feed or antibiotics.

Heritage Turkey Breeds — Commercial turkeys are se-lected for low-cost production, resulting in unnatural turkeybreeds that require intervention for reproduction, according toSlow Food USA’s partner in saving heritage turkeys, the Amer-ican Livestock Breeds Conservancy. It promotes turkeys pro-duced by natural mating, a long, productive outdoor lifespanand slow growth rates that preserve successful mating and pro-duction of fertile eggs without artificial insemination or otherinterventions.

Gravenstein Apple — Traditionally grown in California’sSonoma County, this apple species is known for its all-purposeversatility: for eating, sauces and apple pie. Slow Food USA ishelping the few remaining Gravenstein growers with market-ing in an effort to counter the species’ quick perishability andthe shrinking acreage dedicated to its production.

Navajo-Churro Sheep — Native American and Hispaniccommunities in the Southwest have long raised Churro sheep,which produce milk, low-fat meat, horns, pelts, two distinctkinds of fiber and manure that renews soil fertility. Slow Foodactivists partner with several organizations and sheep herdersto develop a market for Churro meat.

Rescuing Threatened Traditional U.S. Products


own vegetables andlearn how to cookthem. The kids happilyeat unfamiliar foods likechick peas and chardafter that hands-on ex-perience, Waters boasts.Through her nonprofitChez Panisse Founda-tion, Waters brought awell-respected chef, AnnCooper, to make similarchanges in the cafete-rias of Berkeley’s other16 public schools.

But Cooper ran intomajor problems. Aftershe introduced whole-wheat veggie pizza withsophisticated toppingslike zucchini, blue cheeseand walnuts, the trashcans overflowed withrejected slices. More than200 students presentedCooper with a petitionprotesting the pizza andother new offerings.

In her first year,Cooper went tens ofthousands of dollarsover budget, lost manypaying customers (stu-dents) and was stuck with surplus com-modity foods provided by the U.S. De-partment of Agriculture (USDA), likeprocessed cheese and canned fruit inheavy syrup. A year later, accordingto a detailed account in The New York-er, Cooper shocked Waters by servingmeat loaf. She had come to appreci-ate centralized kitchens, mainstreamrecipes and a large bakery that couldproduce 200,000 pastries a day. 18

Asked about that outcome, Waterssays, “We asked Ann to do what shecould do” within the existing con-straints of budget and USDA guide-lines. But she adds, “That’s not thegoal. She’s trying to work within thesystem, within the budget; I’m talkingabout doubling the budget.”

Janey Thornton, president of theSchool Nutrition Association, which rep-resents both school cafeteria directorsand major food corporations, countersthat school meals have already grownmuch healthier in response to concernsabout obesity. “Were seeing a tremen-dous increase in fresh fruits and veg-etables being offered and a greater va-riety” in schools across the country, shesays. “Where there used to be morewhole milk, there are now fat-free orlow-fat food products,” including a lotmore whole wheat and fiber.

And she cautions against too radicala change. In her Hardin County, Ky.,school district, where she is nutritiondirector, soft drinks have been bannedfrom vending machines but are still

served at athletic events afterschool. “If we say to stu-dents never ever drink asoda, I don’t know thatthey’ll listen to anything wesay,” she warns.

Margo Wootan, director ofnutrition policy at the Cen-ter for Science in the PublicInterest (CSPI), says the USDAneeds to make its guidelinesmore consistent with currentknowledge about nutrition,such as reducing saturatedfat, eliminating trans fats andswitching to low-fat or fat-free milk. The USDA alsoneeds to update its stan-dards for vending machinesodas and snacks servedoutside of school meals, shesays. USDA standards forsnacks served outside lunchare “very weak and woeful-ly out of date,” she says.“They don’t address saturat-ed fat, trans fat, sodium,calories — the major nutri-tional concerns.”

In England, controversyerupted after the govern-ment tried to make schoolmeals healthier by requiring

more vegetables and fewer fried foods.“Meatpie mums” sneaked food to kidsat school who claim they’re going hun-gry without the usual French fries, andthe number of kids taking school lunch-es dropped in some districts. Some crit-ics say the program is demonizing kidsfor their eating habits, which are nor-mally conservative. (See sidebar, p. 84.)

Slow Food’s Upton suggests Britonsmay have made too radical a changetoo quickly. “Instead of telling kidsthey can’t have pizza [with lots of sodi-um and processed cheese], we havea cheese maker come in and theymake it with him; it’s a treat.” Thegoal, she says, is the “pleasures of thetable; we’re interested in changing eat-ing habits but not necessarily because

Chef Alice Waters, founder of the famed Chez Panisse restaurantin Berkeley, Calif., and a founder of the Slow Food USA movement,

discusses her “edible school yard” concept with Britain’s PrinceCharles — an avid organic gardener — during a visit to Berkeley’s

Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School on Nov. 7, 2005.

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of the obesity epidemic. Food tastesgood when it’s local, seasonal andfresh from the farm and prepared withfriends and family. Understandingfood is more than something you eat— it’s a community activity as well.”

Would reducing farm subsidiesimprove our food?

American obesity and concomitantdiseases like type-2 diabetes are in-creasingly being blamed on U.S. farmpolicies. Farm subsidies and trade pol-icy have given rise to a food systemthat supplies 3,900 calories for eachperson every day, roughly twice whatwe need and 700 calories more thanwas consumed in 1980, the dawningof the obesity epidemic, Nestle wroterecently. “In this overabundant foodeconomy, companies must competefiercely for sales,” she observed, push-ing the industry toward selling junkfoods and super-sizing portions. 19

Corn accounts for most of the sur-plus calories we grow and eat, andcorn farmers receive about a quarterof the roughly $20 billion in farm sub-sidies paid by U.S. taxpayers eachyear, Pollan writes in The Omnivore’sDilemma. 20

The mountain of cheap, surplus cornhas encouraged the development of awide variety of novel corn productslike high-fructose corn syrup — large-ly responsible for the dense caloriesin processed foods. Pollan describeshow family farms that once raised avariety of vegetables, fruits and pas-ture-grazed animals were ripped up tobenefit from the government’s cornpayments, contributing to the devel-opment of a corn monoculture andthe loss of crop diversity.

In a recent forum in The Nationmagazine, Pollan argued, “Nothingcould do more to reform America’sfood system — and by doing so im-prove the condition of America’s en-vironment and public health — thanif the rest of us were suddenly toweigh in” on the upcoming farm bill.

The legislation is traditionally writtenlargely by two agriculture committeesand a small contingent of lobbyists forbig commodity crops like corn and soy-beans. The bill comes up for reautho-rization later this year. 21

Corn subsidies help explain whythe Agriculture Department has tradi-tionally dumped cheap, low-gradebeef and dairy products — typicallyhigh in fat — on American schools forchildren’s lunches, critics say. The sub-sidies are also one reason whyprocessed foods — which usually con-tain some corn product — are thecheapest source of calories and a con-tributor to obesity among the poor.Anyone cruising the typical Americansupermarket on a budget will find thata dollar buys thousands more caloriesin the processed foods and soda aislesthan in the produce section. “Why? Be-cause the farm bill supports the grow-ing of corn but not the growing offresh carrots,” Pollan writes. 22

By contrast, says Ronnie Cummins,national director of the Organic Con-sumers Association in Finland, Minn., or-ganic produce is more expensive be-cause farmers get minimal governmenthelp — less than $2 million out of some$20 billion yearly — to switch from con-ventional farming to organic farming. Dur-ing the federally prescribed three-yeartransition to organic certification, farm-ers often lose money. They may sufferreduced yields because they’re no longerrelying on pesticides and artificial fertil-izers. And they have to pay for inspec-tion and other new costs but cannot yetcertify their products organic to com-mand a premium price.

“In the European Union, governmentsunderstand it’s in your interest to helpfamily farmers make the transition to or-ganic,” says Cummins. “We’re saying inthe U.S. we want a fair share of USDAsubsidies and program moneys for or-ganic and transition-to-organic farmers.”

In 2003, the European Union (EU)de-linked farm subsidies from produc-tion in favor of payments that reward-

ed environmental stewardship. Underthe new system, British farmers receivea per-acre payment for environmental-ly sound practices, even more for acreagethat’s organic and yet more for addi-tional conservation, such as protectingmoorland. It’s too early to say whetherthe program has encouraged more farm-ers to go organic, because many onlystarted getting their new payments lastyear, says Peter Melchett, policy direc-tor of the Soil Association, a leading or-ganic advocacy group in England.

However, the government now hasmore than 28,000 environmental stew-ardship agreements with farmers onabout 10 million acres, according toMatt Conway, a spokesman for theDepartment of Environment, Food andRural Affairs. Growing consumer de-mand for organics in Europe is prob-ably the main factor driving the growthof organic farming, Melchett says.

Until the recent reform in EU subsi-dies, Scottish organic farmer Denise Wal-ton says she and her husband werecaught up on a production treadmill be-cause subsidies were based on quantity.Now that they get a fixed payment forenvironmental management at the endof the year, they’ve been able to varythe mix of cropland and pasture for theirorganically raised hogs and put somearable land into rotation. “We’ve beenable to adopt the Slow Food philosophy,and we’re free to give the market whatit needs,” she said, as she passed outsamples of her smoked pork at theUnited Kingdom booth in Turin.

The American Farmland Trust, whichworks to preserve farm and grazing landand protect rural communities, is mount-ing an aggressive attack on traditionalfarm programs. Instead of proposing awholesale shift in subsidies along Euro-pean lines — an uphill political battle— the trust proposes “green payments”to farmers who undertake environmen-tally sound practices, says Policy Direc-tor Jimmy Daukas. The existing subsi-dies, which go mainly to five commodity

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Chronology1930s During the De-pression, government aids farm-ers struggling with surplusesand falling prices, sends surplusfoods to hungry schoolchildren.

1933First farm bill passed to bolsterprices of commodity crops like corn.

•

1940s-1950sFast-food empires and time-saving foods sprout, spurredby new highways and suburbsand working moms; cookingbecomes a man’s activity; freeschool lunches started.

1940J. I. Rodale founds Organic Garden-ing and Farming magazine.

1948McDonald brothers apply assembly-line technique to hamburger joint;donut shop opens that will becomeDunkin Donuts.

1952First Kentucky Fried Chicken opensnear Salt Lake City. By the early1960s, it is the largest restaurantchain in the United States.

1956Congress passes the first InterstateHighway Act, which encourages carsales and suburban developments.

•

1960s-1970sOrganic foods enter the counter-culture; hippies start communalfarming; gourmet cooking risesin popularity; Alice Waters startsfresh-food movement.

1963“The French Chef” debuts on TVwith Julia Child.

1966Child Nutrition Act requires Depart-ment of Agriculture (USDA) to de-velop nutrition regulations forschool meals.

1969Activists seize People’s Park inBerkeley, Calif., to build a modelsociety and grow fresh food.

1971Waters opens Chez Panisse in Berke-ley, stressing fresh, local ingredients.

1973President Richard M. Nixon’s Agri-culture secretary, Earl Butz, urgesfarmers to plant corn; governmentpays farmers for shortfalls in theprice of corn.

1975Gourmet cookware sales rise.

•

1980s Opening of Mc-Donald’s in Rome is protested;Slow Food movement founded;prosperity of era makes gourmetitems increasingly available andaffordable; Reagan administra-tion declares ketchup a vegetable.

March 20, 1986McDonald’s opens in Rome’s Piazzadi Spagna, provoking protests.

Nov. 3, 1987Carlo Petrini publishes manifestoarguing that “slow food” shouldreplace fast food.

1989Inaugural meeting of internationalSlow Food movement held in Paris.

1990s Slow Foodgrows into international move-ment, adds mission of savingendangered foods.

1995Slow Food France is launched.

1997Slow Food launches the Ark ofTaste “to save the planet of taste”for endangered, delicious foods.

•

2000s Slow Foodmovement adds the UnitedStates and Britain to its roster;Americans spend half theirfood dollar on restaurants,and one-quarter visit fast-foodrestaurants at least once aweek; new interests jockeyover federal farm subsidies.

2000Slow Food USA is founded in NewYork with 1,000 members.

2005Slow Food United Kingdom isborn. Slow Food has 83,000 mem-bers worldwide. U.S. governmentpublishes new Dietary Guidelinesfor Americans.

October 2006Terra Madre, Slow Food’s interna-tional conference in Turin, draws8,000 delegates and 100,000 visitorsto tasting halls.

2007Farm bill to come up for a votein Congress with new pressuresfrom health groups, organic andsmall-farm interests. . . . USDA isexpected to issue new nutritionguidelines for school lunches.

84 CQ Researcher

crops — corn, wheat, cotton, soybeansand rice — primarily end up in thehands of larger farmers, he says, andcan stimulate overproduction.

“It’s costing a lot of taxpayer dollarsand not getting a lot of public benefit,”Daukas says. “If we want to supportfarmers, why not support them for theirstewardship of the land?”

But it’s not just big farmers whoare likely to oppose any wholesaleshift away from subsidizing com-modities. “We feel the broad-brushelimination of commodity-crop sub-sidies would be very difficult for fam-ily-scale farmers that rely on com-modity subsidies,” says ThomasForster, policy director at the Com-munity Food Security Coalition, rep-

resenting 300 groups from soupkitchens to farmers’ cooperatives in-terested in connecting farm food tocity-dwellers’ needs.

Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., co-chairmanof the congressional Organic Caucus,plans to introduce legislation propos-ing a boost in government payments— to about $35 million over five years— to help farms make the transitionto organic. He favors de-linking subsi-dies from production, noting that 70percent of producers in this country“get virtually nothing under the farmbill. That shows how top-heavy thesesubsidy payments are and how theybenefit so few of our producers.”

Lyons, of spiked magazine, says someobservers suspect the new EU reformsare just a way for governments to keep

the payments going to their nation’s farm-ers. “You suspect it’s driven by coun-tries with a lot more farmers,” he says.“There isn’t demand for the food theyproduce,” so countries keep on fundingthem “just to keep the countryside tidy.”It would be more rational if farm pro-duce from the developing world weregiven a market, he adds.

BACKGROUNDThe Brothers McDonald

O nly a generation ago, three-quarters of Americans’ food ex-

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Continued from p. 82

Celebrity Chef Jamie Oliver caused a sensation when histelevision exposé revealed that British schools werefeeding children deep-fried foods shaped like smiley

faces but filled with reconstituted meat of mysterious, repel-lant origin.

At Kidbrooke School in Greenwich, the students weresubsisting largely on French fries, according to Oliver, andcouldn’t identify fresh vegetables like asparagus. After 5 mil-lion people watched the program “Jamie’s School Dinners,”Oliver collected more than 270,000 signatures on a petitionto Prime Minister Tony Blair asking for improvements in schoolmeals. Blair pledged £220 million (about $434 million) andset up the independent School Food Trust, which issued newfood standards.

Last September, potato chips, sugary drinks and candywere banished from British school cafeterias. They now mustserve at least two portions of fruit and vegetables every day,limit deep-fried foods to no more than twice weekly, keepsalt off lunch tables and serve fish at least once every threeweeks.

The government cited statistics showing Britons are thefattest people in Europe and predictions that by 2020 about30 percent of boys and 40 percent of girls will be clinicallyobese. 1

But the reforms quickly ran into problems. At RawmarshSchool in Northern England, several mothers caused a sensa-tion passing forbidden fries and hamburgers to children through

school railings, complaining that they were going hungry. Onemother said her children found the new low-fat pizza and tagli-atelle with meatballs particularly unattractive. The mothers calleda truce after the media dubbed them “meatpie mums.” 2

In November, a BBC survey found that 59 percent of localauthorities had recorded a recent decline in the number of din-ners taken by children at secondary schools. Though the sur-vey suggested a small overall drop of 5.8 percent, some schoolsreported 30 percent declines. 3

Responding to the survey, School Food Trust spokesmanBrian Dow says, “We were very clear in the first year you’dsee a bit of a dip. It’s very common that kids are initially abit hostile. Some research shows it takes as much as 12 tastesof a food before children come round to enjoying it.”

Oliver’s show documented many of the obstacles he en-countered when he first experimented in schools. Studentsled demonstrations against his new recipes with fresh veg-etables and said they wanted their French fries back. His so-lution: grind up the vegetables in the tomato sauce. Manyschools had abandoned kitchens altogether in years past andemployed “dinner ladies” who simply reheated meals insteadof cooking. Oliver’s solution: boot camp cookery training andusing the kitchens of local pubs, which proved to be a san-itation nightmare.

Nevertheless, a year after he began the experiment TV cam-eras captured kids eating his green salad and saying they ac-tually liked his spaghetti Bolognese.

British Schools Won’t Serve French FriesCelebrity chef’s new lunch menu causes some indigestion


penses went for meals prepared athome. Today, about half of food ex-penditures are in restaurants — mainlyfast-food restaurants. 23

How did we become a nation where75 percent of Americans eat fast foodat least once a week? 24

The answer starts with brothersRichard and Maurice McDonald, whoran a hamburger drive-in in SanBernardino, Calif., in the late 1940s.Tired of constantly hiring new cooksand carhops and replacing brokendishes, they decided to try a radicallynew approach in 1948. 25

Applying assembly-line princi-ples, they divided up cooking intosmall tasks for each kitchen work-er, used paper plates and featuredself-service. The faster and cheaper

operation resulted in lower pricesand more customers.

“Working-class families could finallyafford to feed their kids restaurant food,”as a McDonald historian put it. 26

Dunkin’ Donuts followed quickly inMcDonald’s footsteps, and in 1952 Ken-tucky Fried Chicken opened near SaltLake City.

The 1956 Interstate Highway Acthelped to catalyze the growth ofchains by creating the nation’s high-way system, which encouraged carsales and suburban development. Otherfundamental societal changes alsocontributed, notes Schlosser in FastFood Nation. In 1975, one-third ofAmerican mothers with childrenworked outside the home. Today, abouttwo-thirds are employed, creating the

need for the cooking services house-wives once performed. 27

Today, with about 30,000 restaurantsworldwide and almost 2,000 openingeach year, McDonald’s is the nation’slargest purchaser of beef, pork andpotatoes and the second-largest pur-chaser of chicken. 28 That kind of cen-tralized purchasing power and demandfor standardized products have givena few corporations an “unprecedenteddegree of power over the nation’s foodsupply,” writes Schlosser. 29

Meanwhile, government subsidiesto farmers who raised commodity cropslike corn and soybeans kept pricesfor those crops extremely low, fur-ther fueling the growth of cheap fastfood. The first farm bill was passedduring the farm depression in 1933

Some advocacy groupssay they’ve had much bet-ter success rates introducingfresh, organic food. Oneschool even boosted the pro-portion of children eatinghot meals by 40 percent.Why the difference?

Peter Melchett, policy di-rector of the Soil Association,a British certifying and ad-vocacy group for organicfood, attributes such successespartly to educational com-ponents like having childrengrow their own vegetables inwindow boxes.

But Jane Sandeman, the London parent of two daughters,worries that children as young as 6 “are being told you mustn’teat fatty foods [in order to remain] thin. For young girls, this ob-session about having too few calories isn’t a good message.”

Sandeman finds it “intrusive” that her 7-year-old daughter’slunchbox gets inspected at her school, which awards a prizefor the healthiest lunchbox. “It is saying to parents, ‘We don’ttrust you packing a lunchbox for your child,’” she objects. Thepractice of investigating lunchboxes isn’t coming from the trust,says spokesman Dow. As for Sandeman’s worries, he responds,

“I don’t think the culture we’repromoting is about cutting calo-ries — it’s just types of foodhigh in salt and sugar. We havean obesity crisis.”

London University medicalprofessor Stanley Feldman,coauthor of the 2006 bookPanic Nation, which defendsBritish school meals, questionsthe nutritional value of someof the changes — for exampleto use ciabatta rather thanwhite bread, noting they bothhave the same carbohydratevalue. The program has con-fused nutrition with “what we

adults consider palatable,” he says. And children’s palates areoften very different from adults, he notes. “A lot of childrenhave never eaten a green vegetable in their life and becomeperfectly normal adults.”

1 “Did You Know?” School Food Trust, www.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk.2 Sarah Lyall, “Glorious Food? English Schoolchildren Think Not,” The NewYork Times, Oct. 18, 2006, p. A1.3 Mark Oliver, “Health Drive Puts Pupils Off School Meals,” GuardianUnlimited, Nov. 6, 2006, http://education.guardian.co.uk.

Celebrity British chef Jamie Oliver revealed that Britishschools were feeding children unhealthy, deep-fried meals,

prompting the government to ban potato chips, sugary drinks and candy and require more

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to keep commodities from fallingbelow a government-set target priceand to avoid surpluses.

But that system changed in 1973,when the inflation rate for groceriesreached an all-time high, and grain-feed prices rose so much that middle-class families couldn’t afford beef. Inresponse, President Richard M. Nixon’sAgriculture secretary, Earl Butz, urgedfarmers to plant corn from “fencerowto fencerow” and paid them directlyfor the shortfall in corn prices.

The new subsidies, writes Pollan,encouraged farmers to sell their cornat any price, even as the growing sup-plies of corn drove prices ever lower.Beginning in the 1980s, big grain buy-ers like Cargill and Archer Daniels Mid-land helped to write U.S. farm bills, fa-voring their interest in keeping cornprices low over the interest of the farm-ers, Pollan writes. 30 By October 2005,farmers were selling a bushel of cornfor a dollar less than it cost to grow,thanks to subsidies. 31

High-fructose corn syrup is one prod-uct of cheap corn, and in 1984 CocaCola and Pepsi switched entirely fromsugar to the cheaper corn syrup, whichpermitted them to super-size their sodas.McDonalds found that super-sizing por-tions got people to buy more food. In-dustrial livestock farms — so-called fac-tory farms — also switched to feedingtheir animals grain instead of puttingthem out to pasture, and cheap grainkept the meat cheap. 32

Pollan argues that fast food hasfooled our bodies — wired by evo-lution to seek out energy-dense foods— causing us to eat more than isgood for us, since “we seldom en-counter these nutrients in the con-centrations we now find them inprocessed foods.” 33

Rise of Slow Food

I n 1986, a young Italian activist, CarloPetrini, started the Slow Food move-

ment to protest the opening of a Mc-Donald’s in Rome’s historic Piazza diSpagna. Fast food had arrived in oneof Italy’s most beautiful squares overthe protests of artists, architects andother protectors of Italian culture, oneof whom said the “nauseating smellof fried food” would contribute to “theruin of Rome.” 34 (Today there aremore than 300 McDonald’s in Italy.)

Petrini was then part of a group ofyoung leftists who traveled around Italyattending fairs celebrating the food spe-cialties and wines of its different re-gions. Petrini was sitting around withhis buddies grumbling about the newMcDonald’s when he came up withthe idea of writing a manifesto. “It waslike a joke” — an ironic play on thephrase Fast Food, says Gigi Padovani,coauthor with Petrini of a history ofthe movement, Slow Food Revolution,published last year in this country.

The manifesto, published in 1987,argued that “slow food” should re-place fast food and that the table shouldbe “given back to taste and to thepleasure of the gourmand.” The ac-tivists welcomed all those “who stilllove the enjoyment of easygoing, slowpleasures.” 35

In 1989, at the inaugural meetingof the International Slow Food move-ment in Paris, representatives of 15countries signed a manifesto declaringthat the “Fast Life has changed ourway of being and threatens our envi-ronment and our landscapes.” 36

Initially, the focus was on appreci-ating fine food, but Slow Food quick-ly grew from an amusing pun to apolitical movement, as Petrini discov-ered that many Italian regional vari-eties of cheeses, sausages, fruits andvegetables were disappearing becausethey were not profitable enough tocompete with intensive agriculture. Hecoined a slogan for restaurateurs:“Adopt Endangered Foods.”

A decade later, there seemed to bea lot of supporters. In 1998, morethan 80,000 visitors came to the move-

ment’s second Salone del Gusto (Salonof Taste) to sample flavors from aroundthe world in three huge tasting halls.“English people may kill to protectanimals and the French become mil-itant in defense of the purity of theirlanguage, but Italians get indignantonly when food is concerned,” TheNew York Times noted. 37

That indignation started to take aconstructive form in the late 1990s,when Petrini visited the Fair of theCapon in Morozzo, a small Italiantown known for its particularly tastybreed of chicken. Its capon had longbeen a traditional Christmas dish inthe Piedmont region. Yet in Morozzo,the breed faced extinction because ofdeclining demand.

Slow Food bought a large numberof the birds and sold them by sub-scription to its members. That led to theidea of creating a “presidium” designa-tion, from the Latin term for a garrison,identifying foods the Slow Food move-ment would aggressively defend.

One of the first steps taken to com-mercialize endangered foods was tocooperate in 2001 with a major su-permarket distribution chain, CoopItalia. The sales, which soon reached1.5 million euros (almost $2 million),stunned the Coop managers, accord-ing to Padovani. 38

Today, when Slow Food singles outfarmers or fishermen for assistance, ithelps them to rescue their special prod-ucts and sometimes to market themas well. In the United States, one ofits most successful projects has beenthe preservation and marketing of her-itage turkeys like those raised byReese in Kansas.

The presidium designation also hasbeen given to the Cape May salt oys-ter, endangered by overfishing, pollu-tion and parasitic disease in DelawareBay. The presidium helps oyster har-vesters maintain a system of cultiva-tion, previously tested in France, inwhich oysters are planted in the seawith minimum environmental impact.

SLOW FOOD MOVEMENT


Slow Food also promotes the labelingand consumption of manoomin, awild rice native to Minnesota lakes,and helps to protect cheeses madefrom California to Connecticut.

From Organic to Gourmet

T he word “organic” was first ap-plied to food in the 1940s by

Organic Gardening and Farmingmagazine, founded by J. I. Rodale, ahealth enthusiast in Pennsylvaniawho advocated growing food with-out synthetic chemicals.

C ongress sparked an ongoing debate in 1990 when it or-dered the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to es-tablish national standards for organic food and farming.

The basic questions: What constitutes organic food and is it truly“good, clean and fair?” — as Carlo Petrini, the Italian leftist whofounded the Slow Food movement, would say.

“The biggest controversy right now is USDA’s allowing largeorganic dairy companies to violate the requirements for pas-ture access to animals,” according to Ronnie Cummins, nationaldirector of the Organic Consumers Association, in Finland, Minn.

Two of the country’s largest organic dairies, Horizon andAurora, raise thousands of cows indoors, where they are fedorganic grain rather than grazing in open pasture. The conceptof the cows having “access to pasture” — a requirement underthe law — is more theoretical than real in such operations,says Cummins, whose organization is leading a consumer boy-cott against the two companies. The USDA is clarifying its access-to outdoors regulation, and many organic-food advocates, in-cluding Horizon, say it should be stricter. 1

Author Michael Pollan points out in his 2006 book The Om-nivore’s Dilemma that when organic companies try to meet thedemand of big chains like Whole Foods, they start looking alot like conventional farms minus the herbicide and pesticide.At 2,000-acre Greenways Farms in California, he writes, thefields look as weed-free as those treated with herbicides. Toachieve that look, organic farms must till the land more, whichreduces the soil’s biological activity and releases so much ni-trogen into the air that the fields require more nitrogen fertil-izer than they otherwise would need. 2

Slow Food advocates call such activities “industrial organic”farming and say it’s not much more environmentally friendlythan conventional industrial farming. For instance, organic farm-ers often end up using more diesel fuel than conventional farm-ers to truck compost across the country and weed and culti-vate their fields. If the compost is produced on the farm ornearby, however, growing food organically uses about one-third less fossil fuel than conventional methods. 3

Crops do not have to be organic, however, to be recog-nized as worthy of safeguarding by Slow Food International.The question of whether to buy organic or local is further con-fused by the fact that most processed organic foods, includingimported meat slaughtered or processed in the United States,are not labeled with their country of origin. Many countries

have dubious methods of organic certification — if they havethem at all, according to Cummins.

“The organic consumer in Wal-Mart who sees a can of beansthat says ‘USDA organic’ on the front has no way of knowingif it’s from China, where it’s against the law for a U.S. certifi-er to certify the product organic,” says Cummins. Although the2002 farm bill included a country-of-origin labeling require-ment, it has only been implemented on fish. Industry groupssay expanded labeling would increase marketing costs by bil-lions of dollars per year, but economists say the costs wouldbe much lower. 4

Adding to the confusion is the increasingly popular prac-tice of “greenwashing” — such as putting a picture of a farmon a non-organic product, like “Natural” Cheetos. Manufactur-ers use the technique in hopes of tapping into the burgeon-ing market for natural and organic foods, which has been grow-ing more than 20 percent a year since 2000 compared to about4 percent for conventional groceries. 5

Kansas heritage turkey grower Frank Reese is dismayed byanother greenwashing tactic: He found a company selling aturkey to Whole Foods with an “heirloom” label carrying a pic-ture of a Bourbon Red, one of the rare breeds he sells for apremium price. “But they don’t have a Bourbon Red on theirfarm,” says Reese. As a result, he has developed his own “Her-itage” label, which the USDA allows him to attach to his turkeysspecifying that they mate naturally, have a long life span andgrow slowly.

A USDA rule proposed last year would have allowed fac-tory farms to feed indoor cattle harvested forage and corn silageinstead of grain and still label the beef “grass-fed,” accordingto Patricia Wisnet, president of the American Grass Fed Asso-ciation. Her organization has developed its own logo that will“define clearly these are pasture-raised not confinement ani-mals” and prohibit antibiotics and synthetic hormones, Wisnetsays. The USDA is to issue a new rule shortly responding tocriticism that the standard is too weak.

1 For background, see Jennifer Weeks, “Factory Farms,” CQ Researcher,Jan. 12, 2007, pp. 25-48.2 Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006), p. 160.3 Ibid., p. 183.4 Weeks, op. cit., p. 39.5 Kim Severson, “Be It Ever So Homespun, There’s Nothing like Spin,” TheNew York Times, Jan. 3, 2007, p. D1.

Slow Food Advocates Question Misleading Food LabelsDo ‘indoor’ cows have pasture access?

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SLOW FOOD MOVEMENT

But the conceptdidn’t really take offuntil 1969, when TheWhole Earth Catalogbrought it to the at-tention of hippies try-ing to grow vegeta-bles away from theoppression of the “su-perindustrial state.”Within two years, thecirculation of Rodale’smagazine surged from400,000 to 700,000. 39

An earlier use of“organic” by 19th-century English socialcritics attacked the bro-ken social connectionswrought by the In-dustrial Revolution andrecalled the lost idealof an organic statewhere people werestill connected bybonds of affection.The 1960s counterculture quickly blend-ed this earlier social meaning of organ-ic with the newer agricultural one.

Nowhere was this more evident thanin the fight to save People’s Park inBerkeley, conceived on April 20, 1969,when young radicals seized a vacant lotowned by the University of California,planted vegetable gardens and an-nounced plans to build a model coop-erative society there with uncontami-nated food. Gov. Ronald Reagan orderedthe National Guard to evict the squat-ters, causing rioting and the death of ayoung man by sheriff’s deputies. 40

By some accounts, People’s Parkmarked the beginning of a pastoral turnfor the counterculture toward communes.They offered idealistic young people achance to subsist on the soil. Around thesame time, food co-ops sprouted that soldbrown rice and brown bread — ratherthan the industrial white product associ-ated with all the evils of capitalism.

When Berkeley counterculturistWaters opened Chez Panisse in 1971,

it marked both an extension of thecounterculture and a turning away frombarricade-storming tactics. Untrained asa chef, Waters made fresh, local in-gredients the centerpiece of unfussycooking. Her revolutionary approachsoon attracted the attention of foodiesacross the nation. 41

Waters’ efforts to seek out and pro-vide a market for local growers gaverise to the formal position of “forager”at many restaurants that copied hersuccessful model of establishing work-ing relationships with local farmers. Atthe beginning, Waters’ $3.95 four-coursemeal was a political statement, foodhistorian David Kamp notes, by show-ing what American food could be likeif people didn’t passively accept in-dustrial TV dinners. The “fresh-foodmovement” that Chez Panisse started,he wrote, may be the counterculture’s“most lasting triumph.” 42

Criticisms today that the restauranthas moved away from its ’60s coun-tercultural ideals to serve a wealthy

elite were always pre-sent in Berkeley amongcountercultural bakersand others uncomfort-able with capitalism.

As Kamp sees it, thefresh-food movement wasonly the latest in a seriesof cooking innovationsthat turned the UnitedStates into a “gourmet na-tion.” His reprinted recipefrom the 1937 ChicagoTribune for a “salad” ofmarshmallows and cannedgrapefruit suspended ingelatin suggests how farthe nation has come. Atthe time, Americansviewed cooking aswomen’s work.

James Beard’s 1941book Cook it Outdoorshelped make cooking aman’s activity. During thepostwar years food con-

glomerates started advertising time-sav-ing foods like Minute Rice. But in 1963“The French Chef” television show,featuring Julia Child, soon introducedAmericans to gourmet cooking.

The prosperity of the 1980s and ’90shelped turn food into a cultural pas-time, making culinary sophistication “nolonger the province of a tiny gourmetelite,” in Kamp’s words. 43

CURRENTSITUATION

Subsidy Reform

W hen the farm bill comes up fora vote later this year, many new

voices are likely to be heard, includingContinued on p. 90

Slow Food International president and founder Carlo Petrini, right,meets Fausto Bertinotti, president of the Italian Lower Chamber, left, at the Terra Madre Food Summit in Turin, Italy, last October. Petrini

started the “slow” food movement to protest the opening of a McDonald’s restaurant in Rome in 1986.

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At Issue:Is organic food better for you?Yes

yesVICTORIA RECORDMEDIA COORDINATOR, SOIL ASSOCIATION*

WRITTEN FOR CQ RESEARCHER, JANUARY 2007

p eople choose to eat organic food for many reasons. Forsome it’s because of the nutritional benefits. In 2000, areview of more than 400 scientific papers by an independent nutritionist found evidence of higher levels

of vitamin C, minerals and trace elements in organic foods. In 2006,the Journal of Dairy Science published results from a three-yearstudy showing a direct link between the whole organic-farming sys-tem and higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids in organic milk.

In addition, there is evidence that organic food is less risky toyour health, containing a tiny number of artificial additives com-pared to the hundreds allowed in non-organic food. Geneticallymodified food is banned in organic farming (including in animalfeed) and antibiotics — routinely used in non-organic, intensivelivestock farming — are only allowed as a last resort in organicfarming.

The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution recentlynoted that it was concerned the Government’s Advisory Com-mittee on Pesticides gave “little recognition” to the fact that“there could be important differences in the susceptibility ofindividuals within the human population to novel chemicals.”The commission concluded that “a more precautionary ap-proach to regulating the use of pesticides is needed.”

Organic farming severely restricts the use of pesticides and ar-tificial chemical fertilizers compared to the hundreds of pesticidesavailable to non-organic farmers. Parents are choosing organicbaby food (currently 51 percent of the total market), partly dueto their concerns about the risks from pesticide residues.

Many people buy organic food because organic farming isgood for the environment. Organic farms have more wildlifeand different species — such as bugs, beetles, butterflies andbirds — than non-organic farms and use less energy and causeless pollution. Animals on organic farms are kept to the highestanimal-welfare standards, and groups like Compassion in WorldFarming endorse organic systems as better for livestock.

More than half of those in lower-income groups are buyingorganic food, and if they buy direct from farmers via boxschemes or farm shops, it need not be more expensive thannon-organic food in supermarkets. The public is well aware ofthe human health, environmental and animal-welfare benefitsof organic food and is making a well-informed decision. Thisis why the organic market in the United Kingdom increased bya staggering 30 percent in 2005 and is now worth £1.6 billion.

* An environmental charity in the United Kingdom promoting sustainable, or-ganic farming and championing human health.

No

ROB LYONSASSISTANT EDITOR AND HEALTH WRITER,WWW.SPIKED-ONLINE.COM

WRITTEN FOR CQ RESEARCHER, JANUARY 2007

o rganic food is increasingly popular in the United King-dom. Sales doubled between 2000 and 2005, to reach£1.2 billion. Almost every supermarket chain has made

a major move into organic food. It is widely believed that or-ganic food is healthier, more environmentally friendly and there-fore more “ethical.”

However, some perspective is required. Even with these in-creased sales figures, organic products account for little morethan 1 percent of overall food and drink sales, according toMintel, a market-analysis company. And the claims madeabout the benefits of organic food are largely illusory.

It is often claimed that organic food is more nutritious —that it contains a higher level of vitamins, minerals and other“trace elements.” The best peer-reviewed work suggests that nosuch conclusion can be drawn because the findings of studiesare contradictory. That is hardly a surprise: Crop variety, localgrowing conditions, cooking method and freshness are all likelyto have a much greater effect on our food than whether man-made fertilizers or pesticides were applied to it. Even Britain’seco-friendly environment minister has suggested eating organicfood is simply a “lifestyle choice” when it comes to health.

There is an assumption that food containing pesticideresidues must be bad for us. But the old adage “the dosemakes the poison” suggests that the tiny quantities involvedare unlikely to cause harm. Even if there were a small riskfrom such chemicals, this should be compared to the muchgreater mass of natural pesticides we consume in our food.As the famous biochemist Bruce Ames has noted, there aremore naturally occurring carcinogens in a cup of coffee thanin a year’s worth of pesticide residues.

The production of agricultural chemicals undoubtedly pro-duces greenhouse gases, and some of these chemicals get re-leased into the environment after use. But this represents onlya small part of the overall environmental equation. What iscommonly ignored is the much greater amount of land re-quired by the organic system to feed the world. The solution,according to organic advocates, is substantially higher foodprices and restrictions on the kinds of food — particularlymeat — that we can consume.

Organic agriculture produces less food, more expensively,with no benefit to health or the environment. Its appeal hasfar less to do with any real advantages and more to do witha modern, and misplaced, rejection of anything “manmade.” Intruth, Mother Nature doesn’t know best.

90 CQ Researcher

SLOW FOOD MOVEMENT

consumers supporting local farm pro-duce and the health and environmen-tal communities.

In May 2006 the American Farm-land Trust proposed shifting billions ofdollars in existing subsidies for farm-ers into “green payments” for envi-ronmentally sound farming practices.“We think over time that would be asignificant improvement in farm policy,”says the Trust’s Daukas.

But citing lawmakers’ mounting con-cern about budget deficits and a small-er anticipated pot of money to playwith, he adds, “That kind of dramaticshift is very unlikely in this budget cli-mate right now.” Nevertheless, Daukasis among those that expect more fund-ing for conservation now that Sen. TomHarkin, D-Iowa, a long-time supporterof conservation, has become Agricul-ture Committee chairman.

While Slow Food advocates say theysupport proposals like the Trust’s, theyaren’t putting their energies into lob-bying Congress. Instead, says SlowFood USA Executive Director Lesser,they’re creating an alternative to themainstream through a grass-roots move-

ment that includes chefs demandingmore varied products, farmers who growthem, farmers’ markets and consumerswho demand fresh, local products. Theirgoal, she says, is to make alternativemarkets mainstream.

“If I buy from a farmer instead of thesupermarket, I’m helping to change thesystem,” says Lesser. “Food is one of thefew areas where people can make adecision on an individual level.”

Although the EU has started to movesubsidies away from production to-ward sustainability, many say it hasn’tgone far enough. “The EU is not goinganywhere near what they can do asfar as de-linking production paymentsand export subsidies to producers,” saysRep. Kind, the Organic Caucus co-chair, citing France and Poland as themain obstacles to subsidy reform. Headds, “It’s very difficult for us to do it,if EU countries don’t.”

Another reason Slow Food oppos-es agricultural subsidies is that theypermit U.S. companies to dumpcheap products in poor countries,says Petrini. That contributes to theloss of diversity in the plants we eat,according to scientist-activist Vandana

Shiva, founder of the Research Foun-dation for Science, Technology andEcology, in India.

She notes that throughout history,humans have eaten more than 80,000plant species — more than 3,000 ofthem used consistently. “However, wenow rely on just eight crops to pro-vide 75 percent of the world’s food,”she writes. “With genetic engineering,production has narrowed to three crops”— corn, soybeans and canola.” 44

In 1998, India’s indigenous edible oilsfrom plants like mustard, coconut,sesame and linseed were banned by thegovernment on grounds of food safety,and restrictions on imported soy-basedoil were removed. Millions of tons of ar-tificially cheap soy oil continue to bedumped on India, according to Shiva.The restrictions and the dumping havethreatened the livelihoods of 10 millionfarmers, according to Shiva. 45

Junk Food in Schools

F ast food and junk food remain alooming presence in American

Continued from p. 88

To appreciate the intensely local nature of Italy and itscuisine, one must eat the food, and Italians understandthis. At the Slow Food conference last fall, a lucky group

of journalists was treated to a five-course dinner featuring spe-cialties from a tiny mountainous region of Sardinia known asMontiferru-Barigadu-Sinis.

The fare included a dense bread bearing the smoky flavorof the wood-fired Sardinian oven in which it had been bakedat 5 a.m. — and which had been flown to Turin with theyoung baker who learned the recipe from his mother. Thebread bore a name so local that even a native of Turin at thedinner had never heard of it.

The sheep ricotta ravioli came from a local recipe datingfrom medieval times, and an antipasto meat pie reflected theinfluence of the Spaniards who once occupied Sardinia. Thechewy beef from local grass-fed cattle had a flavor that borelittle resemblance to the homogenous American steak.

Perhaps only in Italy would businessmen count on theirmother’s cooking to strengthen the local economy. The Sar-dinians who hosted the dinner hope that raising awareness oftheir local foods will attract newcomers — including touristsand second-home buyers — and help reverse the isolated is-land’s population decline.

“Our goal is to repopulate the area by making it a hos-pitable territory with an ideal quality of life,” one of the hostssaid, raising a glass of Sardinian wine.

The memorable meal took on historic significance when thesommelier opened an 1896 bottle of Sardinian cognac. Everyoneheld their collective breaths, wondering if the 100-year-old corkwould crumble. But not to worry. The successful uncorking ledto the opening of another bottle for the diners to swirl in theirbrandy glasses, dreaming of sun-bleached fishing villages andperhaps a second home.

Slow Food Dining Sardinian-Style


schools. And despite some improve-ments, activists say regular school mealsneed to be updated to reflect currentnutritional standards and today’s con-cerns — obesity rather than the mal-nutrition of the Depression-era schoollunch program.

Later this year, new USDA nutritionguidelines for school meals are expectedto reflect the revised Dietary Guide-lines for all Americans issued in 2005by the Departments of Agriculture andHealth and Human Services. “Signifi-cant improvements” in the new guide-lines have implications for school meals,including reducing saturated fat andlimiting calories, says Wootan of theCenter for Science in the Public In-terest (CSPI).

Although cheap USDA commodityfoods sold to schools have long comeunder criticism for high fat content,Wootan says they’ve improved. For ex-ample, the ground beef is leaner thanmost supermarket meat, she says. Manyof the nation’s largest school districtsrecently banned soda, includingBoston, Chicago, Washington, Los An-geles and New York City. 46

But two-thirds of the states haveinadequate policies when it comes tofood sold outside of school meals, in-cluding items sold in vending ma-chines, snack shops and school cafe-terias, according to CSPI. Only 10 stateshave school food or beverage nutritionstandards applying to the whole cam-pus and the whole school day at allgrade levels. 47

In addition, about 20 percent ofschools serve branded fast food, ac-cording to the Centers for DiseaseControl and Prevention. 48

Eighty-three percent of elementaryschools, 97 percent of middle schoolsand 99 percent of high schools sellfood and beverages from vending ma-chines and school stores and as sep-arately sold items like pizza and chips,according to a Government Account-ability Office survey. 49 Thus childrencan build their own unhealthy meal

with à la carte items like potato chipsand Gatorade instead of milk and veg-etables, says Wootan.

Critics blame the weakness ofUSDA standards on the department’sdual role of helping farmers andschools. “Because of internal con-flicts of interest,” New York Univer-sity nutrition expert Nestle has writ-ten, the USDA “cannot protect theintegrity of the school meals programon its own.” She has recommendedthat USDA develop an alliance withthe Departments of Education andHealth and Human Services when itcomes to prescribing a nutritiousschool lunch. 50

New Legislation

N utrition advocates like CSPI sup-port legislation mandating the

USDA to issue updated nutritionalstandards for all foods sold in school,including in vending machines andschool snack bars. Although Congresshas repeatedly resisted such efforts,Wootan says the prospects look bet-ter this Congress for the proposedChild Nutrition Promotion and SchoolLunch Protection Act. It was intro-duced last year by Sen. Harkin, whonow chairs the Agriculture Commit-tee, which is responsible for schoollunch legislation. He is expected toreintroduce the bill.

Whether big food companies wouldfight the bill is another question. “Wedon’t think it’s needed,” says KevinKeane, senior vice president for com-munications at the American Bever-age Association. He points to volun-tary guidelines announced last Mayby his association, former PresidentBill Clinton and the American HeartAssociation to cap portion sizes andrestrict soda sales in schools. ButWootan notes that it remains to beseen if schools will comply with theguidelines.

Activists have focused on softdrinks because they are more clear-ly linked to obesity than any otherfood. Researchers have found thatfor each additional soft drink a childconsumes per day, the chance of be-coming overweight increases by 60percent. 51

New federal requirements thatevery school district promulgate a “Well-ness Policy” by the beginning of the2007 school year have given SlowFood advocates a new platform foradvocating better school meals. They’veput a how-to guide on their Web sitethat tries to imbue pleasure and edu-cation into lunch. “It’s not just aboutcounting calories; it’s a more holisticapproach to how food and ecologycan address the wellbeing of the childwhile in school,” says Lesser of SlowFood USA.

A promising development has beenthe growth in school districts seekingout local farm produce — from a hand-ful in 1996 to 1,000 school districts in32 states today, according to MarionKalb, director of the National Farmto School Program for the Commu-nity Food Security Coalition, in SantaFe, N.M.

Increasingly, schools are responsiveto pressure from parents and othersto make meals healthier because ofgrowing concern about obesity, Kalbsays. But there are numerous hurdles.Some school kitchens, concerned aboutfood safety, want mainly processedfoods. “In large urban areas,” Kalb says,“it’s harder to try to team up with dis-tributors and ask them to buy fromfarmers and deliver the produce toschools.” And schools often expect toreceive apples already washed andneatly sliced.

“Fresh vegetables and fruit aremore expensive than what schools canget through the commodity programat a cheap rate,” says Kalb, thoughcommodity fruits and vegetables aregenerally processed, not fresh. Ifschools are serving anything extra, it’s

92 CQ Researcher

more likely to be pizza, chips orboxed salads that schools sell to makeadditional funds, she says.

And then a lot of children are re-sistant to the very idea of eating agreen vegetable, Kalb agrees. “Themost successful schools are those thatcombine having kids taste in advanceor when kids grow things in schoolgardens,” she says.

The Johnson City Central SchoolDistrict near Binghamton, N.Y., madethe switch. Food Service Director RayDenniston works directly with a localfarmer to provide fresh tomatoes, cu-cumbers, broccoli, cauliflower, pears,apples and seedless grapes. Throughtaste-testing with a few students at atime, Denniston discovered that kidsprefer broccoli in the form of raw flo-rets — a big improvement over themushy cooked variety. Among the morepopular items are carrots cut in coinsor sticks and individually bagged.

“We don’t use canned vegetablesanymore,” Denniston says. “Our biggestproblem is we live in New York state,so it’s a short growing season; it’s hardfinding enough product and convinc-ing the farmer it’s worth the risk toopen the market to us.”

Cost is another problem. Once hesubtracts fixed costs and entrees fromthe roughly $2 he gets for a meal, heestimates only 10 cents is left for freshfruit or vegetables.

In the last farm bill, Congress cre-ated a Farm to School program to pro-vide fruit and vegetable snacks in schoolsbut didn’t fund it. The American Farm-

land Trust is pushing for funding inthe upcoming bill.

OUTLOOKScrapple Anyone?

L ed by Chez Panisse’s Waters andjournalist-turned activist Pollan,

Slow Food USA hopes its first majornational conference next year willraise awareness of American regionalfoods worth preserving.

But will the movement appeal onlyto the well-off? In his forthcoming book,Slow Food Nation, Petrini describes hisdiscomfort upon visiting the San Fran-cisco Farmers’ Market, where college-educated farmers sold vegetables tosleek customers who looked like moviestars. Having bought their peppers andapples at astronomical prices, thesecustomers went home showing themoff “like jewels, status symbols,” hewrites. Driving past an endless chainof fast-food restaurants outside the city,he realized that’s where the “ordinarypeople” were eating. 52

Petrini is among those who wouldlike to see the American Slow Foodmovement grow closer to Italy’s,where the best-selling Slow Foodguide features the modestly pricedfamily-owned restaurant known as thetrattoria rather than pricey temples ofhaute cuisine. Slow Food should be

as much about appreciating humbletraditional foods like scrapple — amixture of pork offal and corn mush— as well as more expensive heritageturkeys, Lesser agrees. At next year’sconference, Waters says, “We’d like tohave cooking demos on how to cookaffordable food by well-known chefs— instead of the unaffordable foodthey usually cook.”

Many Slow Food advocates say thelow price Americans pay for food is cost-ing them in other ways. Food is a small-er part of the household budget than itwas decades ago but doesn’t representother costs — degradation to the envi-ronment and loss of diversity from cen-tralized agriculture, they maintain. “Youeither pay now or you pay later in termsof our health, environment or culture,”says Waters. “We have to make a choice.Do you want two pairs of Nikes and acell phone or food that’s nourishing andtaking care of the environment?”

Will all Americans — even the poor— ever be willing to pay more for some-thing that tastes better? Low-income moth-ers now receive vouchers that they cancash in for fresh produce at farmers’markets through the Women’s, Infants,and Children (WIC) nutrition programadministered by USDA. Although thevouchers amount to only $20 a season,WIC mothers have started coming backto spend their own money, accordingto Forster of the Community Food Se-curity Coalition. In the course of shop-ping, “Relationships are hatched be-tween farmers and WIC moms,” he says,and the farmers give the moms cook-ing tips, which keep them coming back.

In lower-income neighborhoods,farmers have tailored their crop selec-tion and marketing to the traditionalfood preference of ethnic minorities andnewly arrived immigrants, according tothe coalition.

And food may have an even moreprofound way of bringing people to-gether. At the international Slow Foodconference last October, one of themost politically interesting workshops

SLOW FOOD MOVEMENT

About the AuthorSarah Glazer, a London-based freelancer, is a regularcontributor to the CQ Researcher. Her articles on health,education and social-policy issues have appeared in TheNew York Times, The Washington Post, The Public In-terest and Gender and Work, a book of essays. Her re-cent CQ Researcher reports include “Increase in Autism”and “Gender and Learning.” She graduated from the Uni-versity of Chicago with a B.A. in American history.


involved Arabs and Israelis cookingtogether. They were eating together“because they all care about the land,”says Waters. “We have a different waywe communicate, and we need to learnthat new language. This other languagethey’re speaking is destroying them.”

As Andrea Reusing, chef-owner of theLantern Restaurant in Chapel Hill, N. C.,told the U.S. delegation at the confer-ence, “We have taste on our side.”

Notes

1 For background, see Jennifer Weeks, “Fac-tory Farms,” CQ Researcher, Jan. 12, 2007,pp. 25-48.2 For complete list, see www.slowfoodusa.org.3 David Kamp, The United States of Arugula:How We Became a Gourmet Nation (2006),see pp. 7, 20.4 www.foxsearchlight.com/fastfoodnation/5 See www.slowfood.com.6 For background, see David Hosansky, “BiotechFoods,” CQ Researcher, March 30, 2001, pp.249-272, and Kathy Koch, “Food-Safety Battle:Organic vs. Biotech,” CQ Researcher, Sept. 4,1998, pp. 761-784.7 For background, see Alan Greenblatt,“Obesity Epidemic,” CQ Researcher, Jan. 31,2003, pp. 73-104.8 Burkhard Bilger, “The Lunchroom Rebellion,”The New Yorker, Sept. 4, 2006, p. 72.9 Michael Pollan, “One Thing to Do AboutFood: A Forum,” The Nation, Sept. 11, 2006,www.thenation.com/doc/20060911/forum.10 Ibid.11 See www.slowfood.com.12 Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma(2006), p. 177.13 Denise Grady, “When Bad things Comefrom ‘Good’ Food,” “Science Times,” The NewYork Times, Jan. 2, 2007, p. F1.14 Stanley Feldman and Vincent Marks, PanicNation (2006), pp. 178-179.15 Bilger, op. cit., pp. 72-80.16 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC), “Overweight and Obesity: ChildhoodObesity: Obesity Prevalence,” Dec. 8, 2006,www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/childhood/prevalence.htm.17 Marion Nestle, Food Politics: How the FoodIndustry Influences Nutrition and Health(2002), p. 7.

18 Bilger, op. cit., pp. 72-80.19 Marion Nestle, “One Thing to Do AboutFood: A Forum,” The Nation, Sept. 11, 2006,www.thenation.com/doc/20060911/forum. Forbackground, see Greenblatt, op. cit.; and Ken-neth Jost, “Diabetes Epidemic,” CQ Researcher,March 9, 2001, pp. 185-200.20 Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, op. cit.,pp. 61, 104.21 For background see Weeks, op. cit., andCatharine Richert, “Reshaping the Farm Agen-da,” CQ Weekly, Jan. 8, 2007, pp. 114-120.22 Pollan, “One Thing to Do About Food,”op. cit.23 Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation (2005), p. 4.24 Kamp, op. cit, pp. 357-358.25 Ibid., pp. 19-20.26 Ibid., p. 20.27 Schlosser, op. cit., p. 4.28 Ibid., p. 4.29 Ibid., p. 5.30 Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, op. cit.,pp. 32-33.31 Ibid.32 Ibid., pp. 105-106.33 Ibid., pp. 106-107.34 Carlo Petrini and Gigi Padovani, Slow FoodRevolution (2006), p. 69.

35 Ibid., p. 72.36 Ibid., p. 76.37 Ibid., p. 101.38 Ibid., p. 112.39 Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, op. cit.,p. 142.40 Kamp, op. cit., p. 141.41 Ibid., p. 123.42 Ibid., p. 142.43 Kamp, op. cit., p. xiii.44 Vandana Shiva, “One Thing to Do AboutFood: A Forum,” The Nation, www.thenation.com.45 Ibid.46 Center for Science in the Public Interest(CSPI), press release, “Schools Getting RawDeal From Bottlers,” 2006.47 CSPI, “School Foods Report Card,” June2006 at www.cspinet.org.48 CDC, “Fact Sheet: Food Service,” September2001, www.cdc.gov/shpps.49 Cited in CSPI, “School Foods Report Card,”op. cit.50 Marion Nestle, “School Food, Public Policyand Strategies for Change,” www.ecoliteracy.org.51 Nestle, Food Politics, op. cit., p. 200.52 Carlo Petrini, Slow Food Nation (April 2007),from advance manuscript.

FOR MORE INFORMATIONAmerican Beverage Association, 1101 16th St., N.W., Washington, DC 20036;(202) 463-6732; www.ameribev.org. Represents major soft-drink companies.

American Farmland Trust, 1200 18th St., N.W., Suite 800, Washington, DC 20036;(202) 331-7300; www.farmland.org. Founded by farmers and conservationists; leadinga broad coalition seeking to reform agricultural subsidies under the farm bill.

Chez Panisse Foundation, 1517 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, CA 94709; (510) 843-3811;www.chezpanissefoundation.org. Started by chef and restaurateur Alice Waters; strivesto improve food and food education in schools.

Organic Consumers Association, 6771 South Silver Hill Dr., Finland MN 55603;(218) 226-4164; www.organicconsumers.org. Advocates labeling of geneticallymodified foods and reduction of pesticide use.

Slow Food International, Via Mendicità Istruita 8, 12042 Bra (Cuneo), Italy;+39 0172 419611; www.slowfood.com. The international headquarters of theSlow Food movement.

Slow Food USA; (718) 260-8000; www.slowfoodusa.org. The American wing ofthe international movement.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, www.ers.usda.gov.Provides up-to-date data about farming, including organic farming.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

94 CQ Researcher

Books

Feldman, Stanley, and Vincent Marks, Panic Nation: Ex-posing the Myths We’re Sold About Food, John Blake, 2006.In a chapter defending traditional British school meals, a

medical scientist and biochemist argue that the obesity epi-demic is exaggerated, that fatness is more the result of classthan school dinners and that what matters is that childrenlike their lunches.

Kamp, David, The United States of Arugula: How WeBecame a Gourmet Nation, Broadway Books, 2006.A writer for Vanity Fair and GQ traces the rise in popu-

larity of gourmet food in America.

Nestle, Marion, Food Politics: How the Food IndustryInfluences Nutrition and Health, University of CaliforniaPress, 2002.A professor of nutrition at New York University and former

nutrition policy adviser to the federal government describes howthe food industry has influenced the makeup of food served atschools and dietary advice from the government.

Petrini, Carlo, Slow Food Nation, Rizzoli, April 2007.“Eating is an agricultural act,” writes Slow Food movement

founder Petrini, describing the loss of local foods and theenvironmental destruction wrought by the introduction offoreign methods like prawn farming in India.

Petrini, Carlo, in conversation with Gigi Padovani, SlowFood Revolution, Rizzoli, 2005.Petrini tells Italian journalist Padovani how his protest

against fast food grew from a small group of Italians into aworldwide movement.

Pollan, Michael, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A NaturalHistory of Four Meals, Penguin Press, 2006.This book by journalist and Slow Food activist Pollan has

become practically the bible of the American Slow Foodmovement for its condemnation of corn subsidies as the rootof many of America’s food ills.

Schlosser, Eric, Fast Food Nation, Harper Perennial, 2005.In this exposé of the fast-food industry, journalist Schlosser

blames the accelerated rise of food-borne illnesses on the cen-tralized food system it helped create.

Articles

“One Thing to Do About Food: A Forum,” The Nation,Sept. 11, 2006, www.thenation.com.

Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini and 11 other prominentfood activists describe one thing they would do to reformtoday’s food system.

Bilger, Burkhard, “The Lunchroom Rebellion: An HauteCuisine Chef Goes Back to School,” The New Yorker,Sept. 4, 2006, pp. 72-80.A description of the obstacles chef Ann Cooper ran into

when she tried to reform Berkeley school lunches and howshe resolved them.

Burros, Marian, “Grass-fed Rule Angers Farmers,” TheNew York Times, July 26, 2006.A federal rule that would have permitted beef to be la-

beled grass-fed even if the cattle never saw a pasture gotan angry response from farmers of grass-fed beef.

Grady, Denise, “When Bad Things Come From ‘Good’Food,” “Science Times,” The New York Times, Jan. 2,2007, p. F1.The roles of centralized farming and food processing are

discussed in relation to the recent outbreaks of E. coli andother food-related illnesses.

Richert, Catharine, “Reshaping the Farm Agenda,” CQWeekly, Jan. 8, 2007, p. 114.The farm bill, which comes up for a vote later this year,

will hear from new voices, including health groups and thosewho want the government to purchase more fruits and veg-etables for school lunches.

Severson, Kim, “Be it Ever So Homespun, There’s Nothinglike Spin,” The New York Times, Jan. 3, 2007, p. D1.Labeling foods with pictures of verdant farms and happy

cows — known as “greenwashing” — can deceive customersabout the origin of grocery items.

Severson, Kim, “Gathering to Celebrate Food Made theOld, Slow Way,” The New York Times, Nov. 1, 2006.Severson describes the combination of food tasting and

serious talk at Terra Madre, the most recent internationalSlow Food gathering in Italy.

Reports

Center for Science in the Public Interest, “School FoodReport Card,” June 2006, www.cspinet.org/schoolre-portcard.In a survey of how states regulate soft drinks and junk

food sold outside of school meals, the advocacy group gavetwo-thirds of states a grade of D or F.

Selected Sources

Bibliography


Genetically Modified Food

Deardorff, Julie, “Food Tweaks Could Leave Us Biode-graded,” Chicago Tribune, April 16, 2006, p. C7.The global biotech-industry trade show hammered home

the message that biotechnology can save our overpopulatedworld from disease, starvation and pollution, but the damagedone by such science was overlooked.

Pollack, Andrew, “A Gap Between the Lab and the DiningTable,” The New York Times, Feb. 14, 2006, p. C1.At the dawn of the biotech-food era, scientists envisioned

all sorts of healthier and tastier foods, including cancer-fightingtomatoes and rot-resistant fruits. But resistance to geneticallymodified foods, technical difficulties, legal and business ob-stacles and the ability to develop improved foods withoutgenetic engineering have winnowed the pipeline.

Heritage Foods

Hubler, Shawn, “The Virtuous Turkey; for ThanksgivingThis Year She Ordered a Free-range, Organically Fed,Politically Correct Standard Bronze. Then She Got toKnow Her Bird,” Los Angeles Times Magazine, Nov. 20,2005, Part I, p. 20.In response to meat and poultry markets dominated by a

handful of breeds genetically engineered to suit the specifi-cations of factory farming, a fourth-generation farmer launch-es Heritage Foods in an attempt to bring back traditional live-stock farming.

Severson, Kim, “Native Foods Nourish Again,” The NewYork Times, Nov. 23, 2005, p. F1.As Native Americans try to reverse decades of cultural and

physical erosion, many of them are turning to the foods thatonce sustained them and are finding allies among the nation’sculinary elite and marketing professionals.

Slow Food Movement

Brubach, Holly, “The New Puritans,” The New York Times,May 7, 2006, p. T42.In documenting the various behind-the-scenes roles that

politics and big business play in shaping our food supply,several authors are on a mission to overhaul the way indi-viduals think about their food.

Doggett, Gina, “Slow Food Movement Meets to ‘SowSeeds of Virtuous Globalization,’ ” Agence France-Presse,Oct. 26, 2006.The Slow Food movement conducted its Second World

Meeting in Turin, Italy, vowing to cooperate to promotefood quality, sustainable agriculture and biodiversity.

Jenkins, Robin Mather, “Gastronomy U; Slow Food-backedProgram Trains Students to Work with Consumers andProducers,” Chicago Tribune, Nov. 29, 2006, p. N3.The first university of its kind in the world, the University

of Gastronomic Science in Pollenzo, Italy, trains epicures inthe gastronomy of the Slow Food movement. The programalso claims to be the only one that trains graduates to workwith producers and consumers.

Muhlke, Christine, “Watch What You Eat, If You Dare,”The New York Times, Nov. 22, 2006, p. F5.Curious about what lay behind the sunny images of food

in advertisements and packages, Austrian filmmaker NikolausGeyrhalter created a film that depicts the mechanical monotonyof industrialized food production.

Sustainable Agriculture

Burros, Marian, “Suppliers Anxious Over Surplus ofHeritage Turkeys,” The New York Times, Oct. 26, 2005,p. F1.Six turkey farmers in Kansas found themselves with 2,000

so-called heritage turkeys after two large purchasers backedout of agreements.

Parsons, Russ, “Almost Paradise; One Family Farm isShowing the Way to Sustainability, an Acre at a Time,”Los Angeles Times, Dec. 6, 2006, p. F1.After attending a conference on sustainable farming, a Cali-

fornia farmer is implementing the principles of environmentalresponsibility, social equity and economic viability on hisfamily farm.

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