Carlo Petrini, founder of the Slow Food Movement, first opposed McDonald’s opening in Italy by handing out plates of penne pasta to protesters. According to Alison Leitch, the Slow Food Movement is “an international consumer movement dedicated to the protection of ‘endangered foods’” (437). Not only does the Slow Food Movement seek to protect endangered foods but it also dedicates itself to the politics of food by promoting niche markets, sustainable food sources and uniform standards of taste. Ariane Lotti argues in “The Commoditization of products and taste: Slow Food and the conservation of agrobiodiversity” that the Slow Food Movement may work to protect endangered foods but simultaneously commoditizes these products and their taste. While the Slow Food movement may fight against fast food, it also commoditizes small-scale farmers’ products by changing their value in the same way a large corporation would do with other products (GMOs, etc.) in a capitalist economy.
With the increased importance of technology in our economy and everyday lives, market players are always looking for innovative ways to use technology to get ahead. The fast food business is already a multi-billion dollar industry. It has clearly been popular and analogous to the busy lifestyles we lead in a globalized world/economy. Lately, several businesses have pushed to make fast food even faster through technology. Katie Jackson explores how “automation is shaping up to be our generation’s food revolution.” Food-related technology companies are disrupting the course of current fast food giants. Technology could eventually grow, prepare and deliver all the food we eat by ultimately monopolizing the fast food industry as we know it. What would Carlo Petrini and the Slow Food Movement say to lab-grown products prepared and delivered solely though technology? Petrini argues that culture (the history behind a product’s evolution or how it is prepared) is a major factor in deciding whether or not a food is worthy of the ‘endangered food’ designation. If so, then does this implementation of technology undermine the idea that food (and everything that has to do with it) has historically been a cultural experience?movie The Diary of a Teenage Girl 2015
Experts predict that this influx of food technology and businesses that capitalize on these innovations is five to ten years off…..
