Started in the nineteen-eighties by Italian food fanatic Carlo Petrini, Slow Food is a social and ecological movement that encourages “good, clean, and fair” food production and consumption. ‘Good’ means that the food tastes good and is good for our bodies; ‘clean’ means that our food is produced in an environmentally sustainable and non-toxic way; and ‘fair’ means that the growers and producers who make our food are paid a fair wage. Although Slow Food now has organizations in one hundred and thirty-two nations around the world, it has gained a reputation for being a club for the middle-aged, social elite. Recently, however, Slow Food has made significant strides to move away from this image through projects such as the indigenous food festival, Terra Madre, and by reaching out to younger generations who are seeking to re-embrace lost food traditions and reconnect with the environment. In 2007 Slow Food USA, launched Slow Food On Campus, an initiative to start-up Slow Food Convivia on college and university campuses. To date there are eight Campus Convivia, one of which is here at Boston University.
Slow Food BU officially became a BU club in the Fall of 2007, and since then has been working diligently to encourage local and seasonal eating on campus. Along with getting involved in the Real Food Challenge, SFBU has been working with other student and administrative groups to encourage environmental sustainability in campus dining halls. A collaboration between SFBU, BU’s Environmental Student Organization, and BU Dining Services, called ‘Tray-less Tuesdays,” effectively limited tray use and water consumption in university dining halls. The success of this project has inspired one independently run dining hall on campus to permanently remove all trays.
In the Spring SFBU hosted “A Foodie’s Dilemma: How Boston’s Cheapskates Can Eat Sustainably,” a panel discussion about the difficulties of eating a local and organic diet on a student budget. Because we are a convivium as well as a club, we hosted bi-monthly potlucks, where students came to learn about Slow Food.
In the upcoming year, SFBU plans to collaborate with the Nutrition Club in order to encourage further sourcing of organic food in campus dining halls. We are also going to be involved with the new farmer’s market on our campus.
To find out more about the Slow Food movement, check out www.slowfood.com. For more on the happenings at BU check out our SFBU blog. We look forward to keeping you up to date on our progress at BU.
Slowly yours,
Dory D
President, SFBU
Hey Dory!
Can you explain a bit more about SFBU’s plans to collaborate with the Nutrition Club to increase organic food in dining halls? How did the collaboration come about? Do you see collaboration with other clubs helping out in realizing your efforts?
Also, out of curiosity, does the Slow Food Movement try to bridge the gap between food classifications or differentiate between organic, fair trade, local, etc.?
To everyone else reading this, have you had any experiences (good or bad) at your school with collaborating with other clubs?
Nina
One of our 2008-09 officers is in the Nutrition Club and has suggested that we collaborate. Our collaboration with the Organic Gardening Collective has thus far been very successful since many of our members have the same interest–locally grown food.
As for Slow Food, the first priority is the preservation of artisinal food, whether it be organic or not. However, the “clean” part of Slow Food’s mission statement does encourage food producers to use the most organic methods available to them. Often though, artisan producers are just as organic than those that label themselves as USDA certified (or otherwise); because they are usually small scale producers, Slow Food supported food producers are sustainable as well.
Slow Food does great work, but just a correction. The Dining hall that started going Tray-less was not an independtly run dining hall. All campus dining at BU is run by Aramark and that dining hall is an Aramark run dining hall.
John, you are correct, however it is my understanding that the request to go tray-less in Myles was made by Robert Flynn, the head chef of Myles Standish dining hall, not by BU Dinning Services or Aramark (though all chefs are employed by Aramark).
However, it is noteworthy that ALL BU Dining Halls are now tray-less.