Slow Eating
My younger brother moved in with my husband and me a few weeks ago. As he acclimated himself to the way we shop, cook, and eat, he finally asked us: "When did you get to be so food-conscious?" I hadn't really given it much consideration before, but we really do put a lot of thought into our food. Our high level of food-consciousness didn't happen overnight, though. Rather, it is the ever-evolving result of learning about food and being exposed to new ideas.
As with many other people, my interactions with food revolve around three main activities: buying it, preparing it, and eating it. There was a time when I sought to complete these interactions as quickly as I could. I shopped quickly, cooked quickly, and ate quickly. In short, I was approaching food with an attitude of convenience — I hurried through whatever it was that I had to do to feed myself so that I could move on to the more important aspects of my day.
As a result, I became proficient with frozen foods, instant foods, just-add-water mixes, boxed mixes, and the like. I saw no problem with this lifestyle — after all, I wasn't going hungry and my approach was very similar to what I had seen my parents do when I was growing up. I would have been perfectly content to continue with this grab-and-go approach if it hadn't been for a three-part enlightenment that showed me the merits of slowing down my food interactions.
We live in a society that is highly structured when it comes to time. Nowhere is this structure felt more acutely than at mealtimes. Many people experience on a regular basis too-short lunch or dinner breaks at work where they have to rush to eat. Not only did I become accustomed to this at work, but I also extended this habit to meals at home. That all changed when my husband and I spent a few days with his relatives, Uncle Bob and Aunt Phyllis.
Unlike most people I knew, Uncle Bob and Aunt Phyllis did not dash through their meals. No, they lingered. At their house, breakfasts that I could have consumed in less than ten minutes stretched into two-hour affairs, only to be repeated at lunch and dinner. It wasn't that they were serving multi-course gourmet meals. Rather, they were taking the time to thoroughly savor both the food and the companionship at the table. For me, this was a wonderful retreat from the rushed pace to which I had grown accustomed — a slowing down which I now endeavor to integrate into my own mealtimes whenever I can (unfortunately, I have yet to find an employer that offers two-hour lunch breaks!).
Soon after this visit, my husband began to work at a restaurant in San Diego that was a part of the Slow Food Movement. A reaction to the increasing abundance of fast-food and over-processed foods, this international movement encourages eating seasonally and locally, and either taking the time to make more things from scratch or seeking out local food artisans who do so. Besides the obvious benefit of eating better-tasting, higher quality food with fewer chemicals, adopting the ideals of this movement helps protect the environment and supports the local economy because less food is being shipped in from distant locations.
Learning about this movement led me to rethink my approach to food preparation. I realized that by rushing through my cooking, I was failing to fully appreciate the food that I was so fortunate to have. When I take my time with preparing meals, I find that not only do I have a greater appreciation for what I am eating, but I experience a greater overall enjoyment of my meals.
Reading brought on the final pieces of my enlightenment. "Sweet, but Sinister," an article by Debra Ginsberg in the June 2005 issue of Organic Style (which is sadly no longer in production) explores the dangers of high fructose corn syrup, an ingredient used in both the sweetening and the preservation of a startling number of foods. This article persuaded me to give up not only this ingredient, but as many other unnatural additives as I could. As a result, I had to eliminate virtually all of the convenience foods that had once been a staple of my diet. I began making more of our food from scratch — breads, sauces, soups, desserts, and so on — so that I would know exactly what was in it.
The Ethical Gourmet by Jay Weinstein was another habit-changing reading experience. With every chapter of this wonderful book, I felt more and more obligated to make socially and environmentally sustainable food choices. This necessitated a slowing down of my weekly grocery shopping. No longer was it possible to dash through the store tossing things into my basket; now I had to take my time, reading labels and thinking about the social and environmental impacts of the products that I was purchasing. No longer is it sufficient to consider solely whether or not a food item will taste good, I now think about where the food came from, how it was grown or produced, who produced it, and what sort of social and environmental conditions my purchases are supporting. With this amount of thinking required, it is impossible to rush through my shopping!
So now, the grocery shopping that was once a hurried chore is a weekly pleasure. In fact, my husband and I have made it our weekly date night! Likewise, food preparation, which I used to strive to finish as quickly as possible, is now an activity to which I willingly devote a lot of time. And while we still have yet to attain the inspirational precedent set by Uncle Bob and Aunt Phyllis, our meals, which were once eaten quickly (and far too often in front of the television), are now lingered over.
I realize that to some people (my brother included), it might seem silly to put so much time and energy into our food interactions, particularly when we have so many convenience items available to us, but I would argue that this slowing down is a wonderful way to both enhance our own lives and connect ourselves to the wider global community.
Making sustainable food choices is a way to link ourselves to the arguably more natural way of life of our ancestors and, at the same time, do our part to enhance and preserve the environmental and social atmosphere that will be here for those who come after us. It still amazes me to think that all of this can be done right from our kitchen!