Better Health through Slow Foods

A few years ago, Hancock, NH resident Kin Schilling learned that nearly 20 percent of American children are obese; and that national statistics in childhood diabetes are also on the rise due, in large part, to fast food diets. Alarmed by the reports, Schilling founded the non-profit, The Cornucopia Project to teach children healthy eating habits through organic gardening.

In her pilot program in Greenville, NH, the longtime organic gardener and former professional cook brought together students from The Crotched Mountain School, a facility for children with severe disabilities; and 5^th and 8^th graders from Antrim, NH’s public Great Brook school in a program designed to teach children to plant, tend, harvest and eat food they grow themselves as part of their school curriculum. Highly successful, the project now serves as a regional model, and Schilling plans to build a greenhouse in every Monadnock (NH) area school.

Schilling is part of the slow food movement, and just one of Slow Food International’s (www.slowfood.com) 80,000 members worldwide who share a passion for food, and a mission to spread the word about the benefits gained by eating locally produced organic grain, vegetable, fruit and animal foods. “Slow food is about saving our food heritage and supporting local food. It’s about eating healthy and safe food,” she says.

The movement was founded in 1986 by Italian writer Carlos Petrini to countermand the rising popularity of fast foods, and to support local sustainable agriculture. Petrini called his work an “eco-gastronomical” movement. He urged others to live life at a more leisurely pace; to gain pleasure from fully tasting and savoring traditional, regional foods; to share that experience with others; and to preserve, protect and promote local food cultures and legacies. Partly a joyous celebration of food, the slow food movement also calls for a return to organic farming and traditional cooking methods as conduits to happier, healthier lives.

Petrini’s message quickly spread internationally. In 2000, Slow Food USA was formed, and now boasts 12,000 members in 450 convivia (chapters) across the country. Today, the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity in Italy maintains a catalogue of foods at risk of extinction; provides direct aid to food growers; and has established the University of Gastronomic Science for the study of food science and culture.

Slow foods provide a healthier diet. Fast foods are high in fat, sugar and salt content, and contain very little fiber, adding up to a lot of empty calories with very little nutritional value; as evidenced by the more than 100 million overweight Americans who consume them. By replacing highly processed foods with slow foods, most people lose weight and reduce the risks of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and many forms of cancer. Besides just making healthy food choices, slow food encourages eating slowly and mindfully, instead of “eating on the run”, which results in eating less; a key factor in living a long and healthy life, according to the American Cancer Society. When scientists at the Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences and Newcastle University School of Agriculture performed a study on rats and organic food, they discovered that rats fed an organic diet weighed less, slept more and developed stronger immune systems than rats fed conventional produce. (Reported in The Scotsman, Feb. 18, 2005).

Researchers around the world have discovered that organic foods also contain more nutrients, making them more effective in fighting disease. A report published in the Journal of Agricultural & Food Chemistry (D01:10.1021) revealed that organic ketchup contains more lycopene per gram than conventionally produced ketchup, making it a valuable aid in inhibiting cancers of the prostrate, breast, intestine and pancreas. Similarly, scientists at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Alnapp found more Vitamin C in organic strawberries than in their mass produced counterparts; and have reported that organic strawberry extract helps to stop the growth of colon and breast cancer cells.

Slow food is safe food because it’s grown organically without toxins, chemicals, irradiation or genetically modified organisms (GMO: the addition of a gene to the molecular structure of an organism); and with no sewer sludge. In the same way, organic animal foods are free from growth hormones and antibiotics. In a study conducted at the University of Washington in Seattle, children fed an organic diet were free from OP (organophosphorous) pesticides which cause neurological damage. Once the same children returned to eating conventional foods, insecticides were again found in the metabolites of their urine. The results of the study were published by the National Institute of Health (www.nih.gov) in their Environmental Health Perspectives journal.

In light of recent threats of Mad Cow disease and contaminated produce, thousands of people have joined the slow food movement, rejecting mass produced foods and turning to local organic food producers for healthier alternatives. “The slow food movement is about growing safe and environmentally friendly foods. If all of this recent ecoli scare from transported lettuce wasn’t a wake-up call for buying locally and for supporting local growers, I don’t know what is”, said Schilling. Slow Food USA program officer Cerise Mayo also has advice for consumers. She says, “I would say: know your farmer, know your grower, know where your food is coming from.”

Image courtesy of Slow Food Archives by Carlo Gaia.