The Slow Movement Isn't Just About Food

It's the Woodstock of Slow Food in San Francisco this weekend, celebrating a movement that " "that was founded in 1989 to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people's dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world."

But it is a meme that has caught on: the idea that you take it slow, do it carefully, do it right and take the time to enjoy it. The Slow Movement is expanding far beyond its base in food, and we think will go a lot farther. Some other fast-moving slow trends:

The Slow Home

Architect John Brown proposes the Slow Home. "Suburban sprawl is like fast food; cheap and easy but also unsatisfying and boring." says the intro Slow Home, which says "takes its name from the slow food movement which arose as a reaction to the processed food industry. In the same ways that slow food helps people learn how to become more familiar and involved with the food they eat, Slow Home provides design focused information to empower individuals to step beyond the too fast world of cookie cutter housing. " He provides ten steps to find the true slow home, including Go Local, Go Green, Go Small and Go Simple. More on the Slow Home

Slow Cities

It is an outgrowth of the slow food movement and like it, started in Italy. According to Der Spiegel, "Slow City" advocates argue that small cities should preserve their traditional structures by observing strict rules: cars should be banned from city centers; people should eat only local products and use sustainable energy. In these cities, there's not much point in looking for a supermarket chain or McDonald's. Read more about slow cities

Slow Travel

It is happening in Sweden, where 8,000 charter trips were offered this summer, "not just eager eco-travel buffs snapping up the train charter trips, but also a heretofore untapped group of travelers afraid to fly, as well as recent retirees who are nostalgic for the longer train trips of their childhood." Read more about slow travel

Slow Flying

We note the return of the propeller plane on shorter routes, which uses a lot less fuel and flies lower. Fifty years ago, a flight to Europe from New York meant a stop in Gander, Reykjavik and Shannon- it was slow, it was low, but you got there in a day. For domestic or European flying, it seems completely obvious. Perhaps we don't need to stop flying, we just have to slow down and enjoy the trip. More on the return of the turboprop

Slow Design

"Slow Design, much like its gastronomic predecessor, is all about pulling back on the reins and taking time to do things well, do them responsibly, and do them in a way that allows the designer, the artisan and the end user to derive pleasure from it.

Just like Slow Food, it's all about using local ingredients, harvested and put together in a socially and environmentally responsible way. Above all, it emphasizes thoughtful, methodical, slow creation and consumption of products as a way to combat the sometimes overwhelming pace of life in the bigger-faster-now 21st century." More about Slow Design

Slow Fashion

"Fast fashion involves a sort of democratization of style. Runway looks are reproduced as quickly as possible for consumers with Target, Old Navy, and H&M budgets. Designers like Marc Jacobs franchise second and third lines, allowing the masses an opportunity to buy a bit of mystique. The garments don't have to last, since the styles are ephemeral. This translates to resource-intensive, disposable clothing. As with food, there's little emphasis on who made a garment and how, or the social and environmental effects.

The slow food movement has focused on making connections between the way a morsel is grown, and how it tastes, helping us reflect on how our consumer choices relate to human and eco impacts through transparency about origins. At London Fashion Week, designers at the Estethica exhibit used similar language to describe design and production processes. Slow fashion means clothing and accessories that start with thoughtfully-chosen beginnings, are constructed by well-paid individuals, and are meant to remain wearable for years to come." More about slow fashion

Slow Freight

That's the Kathleen and May, pulling into Dublin with 22 pallets--that's 21,000 bottles of Fair Wind Wine--from Languedoc, carried by the Compagnie de Transport Maritime à la Voile (CTMV). They are the "owners and operators of the first [21st century] European fleet of merchant sailing ships, and the current market leader for clean, environmentally friendly transport." Transportation by sail has one-seventh the carbon emissions of a container ship.

"Consumers today don't know how long things really need - how long wine takes to mature; how long an apple takes to grow. [Slow freight] is a pedagogic thing. If the ship's late, it's because it's working with nature." He adds that there are added benefits of sending the bottles by boat, too - the rolling of the waves apparently improves the flavour of the wine." More about slow freight

Slow Cars

Our own contribution. Perhaps, like the slow food movement, we need a slow car movement, a radical lowering of the speed limit so that the private car can survive in an era of peak oil and global warming, simply by being smaller and slower. Fuel consumption rises dramatically with speed, as does the need for air bags, crush zones and other safety features that add weight, the other factor affecting fuel consumption. Electric cars go a lot farther when they are light as well.

We don't need hydrogen cars and new technology, we just need better, smaller designs, lower speed limits and no big SUVs on the road to squish them. More on Slow Cars

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Comments

[cigi]

As someone who ran on the treadmill (constantly being set on gallop) for many years, I made it to retirement and SLOW is a wonderful concept, that I believed should have been put back into all of our lives long ago. Slow gives you greater control over quality control in business; Slow gives you time to realize that on the job you must try to be safe, even in an office environment. It is a philosophy that I think the kids who are hitting 30 now, may be able to effect on our society. It is not a way to encourage laziness but fast does not always indicate quality or what is best for our society.

[Badbone]

Not just a bad sell, but a terrible idea. This movement makes the same mistake so many other green movements make. They demand radical reductions of choices, then act surprised when people balk.

The average Joe exists. In fact, more Joes exist than greens. The way to turn Joe into a green is NOT to present him with a laundry list of things he can no longer do. It is NOT to tell him to do with less, do everything slower, be less efficient, and basically move his lifestyle back 100+ years.

That sort of thinking plays right into the hands of those who want to keep the status quo. I attempt to be green myself, but when I see the suggestions in the article, I cringe. Think this will play in Peoria?

The green movement has got to get away from its hippie commune roots. Do you honestly think any car loving man is going to see that dinky little car in the last picture, and be convinced? Yes, you can get people away from SUVs. But cars like that are a losing proposition.

We have got to show people the positive side of being green. Not just the negative. We’re like a doctor who just diagnosed a patient with high cholesterol, giving him a list of what he can’t have. “NO cheese. NO butter. NO steak. NO fried foods.”

Is that tactic effective? No less so than this BS “slow” movement. It’s a losing propostion.

[ErinDavis]

"the idea that you take it slow, do it carefully, do it right and take the time to enjoy it."

Apparently the people in charge of the Slow Food Nation Tasting Pavilions at Ft. Mason forgot this idea. Well, they got the slow part right. But they didn't do it carefully, they didn't do it right, and there certainly wasn't time to enjoy anything.

We paid $58/ticket to stand in a bunch of lines. When we did get through a line, it's not like we could talk to the good people who had produced the food. We just grabbed our plate and went to the next line!

There were no signs showing where each line began, how many "slow dough" dollars each line was going to cost you ( These seemingly last minute additions to the event were presumably meant to keep me from taking too much. The lines took care of it. What a waste of paper!), or what you were even getting in line for.

I'd pay twice as much if I thought I was going to enjoy myself and learn something. But all you're done is make me angry. I'll be spending my money at farmers' markets and well-run slow food restaurants from now on.

Good ideas should be supported. But we can't support good ideas by letting the most inept among us be in charge of them. Do not support the Slow Food Nation. They give this slow movement a bad name.

[JohnKdrew]

Wow! I love this... slow means good for the planet obviously. I like both ideas -- slower to savour more and slower to reduce my footprint. As the world’s population comes to grips with climate change disasters, it will become necessary to apply selectivity to resource allocation. Slowing down coudl be one way -- triage is another - www.climatechangetriage.net

[Paulist]

Information please: Do the left over kernels in a microwave popcorn bag make good feed for wild birds?