Hungry for “Good, Clean and Fair” Food? Eat, Shop and Invest “Slowly”

• Posted by RPaul Herman
• On September 02, 2008


• Interests: Consumption

Over the Labor Day holiday weekend in San Francisco, the Slow Food movement inaugurated its first USA conference (www.slowfoodnation.org ).

Slow Food – seeking to promote the opposite of “fast food” – started more than two decades ago in Italy, when Carlo Petrini protested the opening of a McDonald’s at the Spanish Steps in Rome.

More than 30,000 Slow Food members from around the world meet in Italy every 2 years (including this October in Torino) for Salone del Gusto (http://www.salonedelgusto.com/ ) to meet producers, learn in workshops and enjoy multi-course dinners with fellow cuisine-crazy citizens.
 
Overall, the Slow Food movement has promoted the tenets of “good, clean and fair” for what you eat and how it’s grown.

    * Good, healthy food from your garden or a sustainable farm.
    * Clean cultivation and preparation – without chemicals or other harmful elements.
    * Fair compensation and wealth-distribution for farmers, suppliers and employees.


According to Slow Food, 93% of food diversity in the United States has been lost since 1900. The organization certifies “good, clean and fair” products from around the world as “presidia” in order to better protect them from endangerment – and promote their continued evolution.
 
Back at Slow Food Nation in San Francisco, my wife (a food guru, writer and blogger ) and I tasted these unique, high-quality food products, shared by their passionate producers, such as:

    * Artisan Sun Crest peaches – juicy, flavor intense and huge in size – from the Central Valley of California, grown by the Masumoto family (www.masumoto.com). For the past two years, we have adopted one of their Elberta peach trees and picked fresh fruit to enjoy and share with friends.
    * Guinea hog from South Dakota, which unlike traditional pork (“the other white meat”) is reddish, luscious and mouth-watering memorable.  The hogs even choose to live outside during the winter. (http://www.maveric9.com/guinea.htm)
    * Tropical paw-paw fruit, most often eaten in hot, humid regions, is native to the Eastern United States as well (and grown in Louisiana and Kentucky). (http://www.pawpaw.kysu.edu/)
    * Wildly-fermented foods, like sauerkraut, that you can grow naturally in your kitchen and WHICH benefit the health of your intestinal flora (www.wildfermentation.com).
    * Even organic vodka, made form corn within 50 miles of the distillery, at Prairie Farms in Minnesota (www.prairievodka.org).
    * And see what other foodies are eating (and upload your own photos) at www.BeenThereAteThat.com

 
This rallying cry of “good, clean and fair” can also be applied to your grocer – whether you shop at Whole Foods or Walmart. Lee Coker has compared five leading groceries – Whole Foods, Walmart, Safeway, Kroger and Tesco -- on how well they apply these three themes in their businesses.
 
Will you eat “good, clean and fair”? Will you invest in companies that do? While Whole Foods has lost half its shareholder value over the past several years, Walmart is growing its bottom-line by embracing more forms of organic and sustainable produce and food. Walmart’s profits and share prices are up as well. Safeway’s “O” organics line is growing faster than the traditional food lines it carries. Tesco has recently launched a new Fresh ‘n’ Easy chain in the United States to expand access to healthy food in all neighborhoods and income levels. Find out more here.

The competition for your food dollars continues – and with the power of your wallet (and your stomach), you can vote with what you eat, where you buy, and how you invest.

• Tags: slow food, grocers, green, food, supply chain, whole foods, walmart, safeway, kroger, masumoto, peaches

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