Random word tuesday: slow food

Bag the drive-thrus - the slow food revolution is gaining momentum! An international grass roots movement founded by Carlo Petrini in the mid 1980s, the slow food movement strives to preserve traditional and regional cuisine and promotes the farming of plants, seeds and livestock characteristic of the local ecosystem.

What began as a resistence against the opening of a McDonald's near Rome's famed Piazza d'Espana and has grown to include over 800 covivia chapters. Some of what the slow food movement promotes is:

- sustaining seed banks to preserve heirloom varieties in coorperation with local food systems
- preserving local and traditional food products
- keeping production small scale
- promoting taste education
- educating consumers about the risks of fast food and agribusiness
- developing political tools to preserve family farms
- lobbying against genetic engineering and the use of pesticides and,
- encouraging ethical buying and teaching gardens for youth.

Tightwad thinks this is pretty, pretty cool. She's off to pick some locally grown blueberries to show her support.