Local food traditions have been lost over the decades and graduate student Allie Scott is working on establishing a Slow Food on Campus chapter to create support for Cache Valley farmers, she said.

The Slow Food movement is nationally recognized with international extensions and was created in hopes of decelerating the rapid pace of consumerism in the sustainable food industry.

A campus Slow Food chapter is necessary because college students are among the biggest abusers of processed foods, eating whatever is most convenient, said Scott, who previously worked as an intern for Food Service Management at University of Notre Dame.

She said, “The closer you source the food, the less harm to the environment. It’s safer and also tastes better.”

Universities from Harvard to Princeton to the City College of San Fransisco are supporting the Slow Food movement. Not only are students excited about establishing Slow Food in Utah, USU faculty voiced that it’s a necessary movement to introduce to Cache Valley. One of these supporters is Dawn Holzer, USU plant protection and quarantine officer who said apples consumed seem to be fresh, but in reality they are three months old and more than likely shot with gas for storage purposes.

Physics professor Allen Howard said, “People are always getting illnesses, and they don’t know where it’s coming from,” which Howard attributes to unhealthy eating habits.

Scott said she was prompted to create a chapter because USU is an agricultural school so “it makes a lot of sense.”

There are a lot of ways to be a slow-food user in Cache Valley, especially for students who have access to the Student Organic Farm, which has been selling produce every Wednesday on the Taggart Student Center Patio. The Slow Food movement ensures local food businesses have the support they need to continue producing food so Cache Valley residents have the opportunity to enjoy organic foods daily, Scott said.

“We have a different climate from Salt Lake. We can grow enough food to feed us here,” said slow-food supporter and career counselor Peg Hennon.

Hennon said she has recently started her own small organic farm in Wellsville.

Slow Food is an organization of “bioneers,” a term coined by Kenny Ausbel in 1990 that envelopes the “emerging culture of social and scientific innovators who are mimicking nature’s operating instructions to serve human ends while enriching the web of life,” according to www.bioneers.org.

Scott said, as a supporter of the Slow Food movement, she participates in Community Supporter Agriculture, which allows her to buy a share of a farmer’s produce. With the purchase of one share for $150, Scott said she is given an “abundant” bag of fresh produce for 16 weeks. She said for the amount of food she receives every week through the program, her food bill is comparatively less than what it would be if she bought the same amount of produce at a grocery store.

The term slow food means the movement is anti-fast food, opposing all the ways McDonald’s and Burger King buy, store and sell their food. Slow Food aims to redirect the U.S. from a “fast-food nation” into a “slow-food nation,” Holzer said. She said Brazil is now being affected by the fast-food nation idea. Brazil is a country that produces fine beef products but currently McDonald’s are skirting all the beef farms, she said.

Not only does slow food encourage environmental health and local food businesses, it encourages the enjoyment of fresh food that tastes better, Scott said. Many slow-food activities in Salt Lake City bring supporters together to delight in unprocessed grub.

Scott is currently working toward setting a faculty adviser in place for the Slow Food chapter and needs 10 members to officially become an accepted slow-food support group.

– catherine.meidell@aggiemail.usu.edu