Slow Food Saves The World

1773 Words8 Pages
Jeffery Sayers Slow Food Saves the World After coming home, exhausted, from a long day at work, the last thing that many Americans want to do is actually cook a fresh meal. The attractiveness of the idea of being able to walk into the supermarket and pick up a cheap meal that can be ready in minutes is almost too good to pass up for any busy American. This consumer culture of buying industrialized and processed foods for convenience has taken over modern America, and has caused many problems in the process. In response to consumer culture, Colin Beaven, author of No Impact Man, attempts to spark a change in the consumer culture of food by adopting a diet that promotes local and fresh foods. After reviewing the problems with consumer culture and Beaven’s findings, it is clear that we as consumers must collectively adopt a new culture of eating in order to solve the problems that consumer food culture has created. Consumer food culture provides convenient food cheaply, quickly and efficiently. At first glance this new culture seems to be a blessing, making our hunt for meals that much easier. But in reality, the huge demand for consumer foods has created many problems and has hindered consumers from receiving quality, safe food. The documentary, Food, Inc. (2008), by Robert Kenner unveils many of the unseen aspects of the food production industry. The film points out that McDonald’s fast food restaurant is the largest purchaser of ground beef and potatoes in the United States, in addition to also being one of the largest purchasers of pork, chicken, tomatoes, lettuce and apples (Food, Inc.). And when McDonalds wants every single one of their products to taste the same, then food production companies will produce their products to McDonald’s standards or else they will lose their biggest purchaser. Because major food production companies must

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