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Our philosophy

We believe that everyone has a fundamental right to pleasure and consequently the responsibility to protect the heritage of food, tradition and culture that make this pleasure possible. Our movement is founded upon this concept of eco-gastronomy – a recognition of the strong connections between plate and planet.

Slow Food is good, clean and fair food. We believe that the food we eat should taste good; that it should be produced in a clean way that does not harm the environment, animal welfare or our health; and that food producers should receive fair compensation for their work.

We consider ourselves co-producers, not consumers, because by being informed about how our food is produced and actively supporting those who produce it, we become a part of and a partner in the production process.

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http://www.time.com/time/europe/hero2004/petrini.html

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Who can resist the laid-back elegance of Carlo Petrini? The huge smile, the twinkling eye, the enthusiastic gestures as he talks — he's a seducer, the Don Juan of the food world. He has changed the way we think about eating.

In 1986, Petrini founded an association called Slow Food in Barolo, a town in the wine country of the Piedmont region. The organization grew out of a protest against the opening of a McDonald's in Rome, and dedicated itself to the protection of traditional foods and agricultural biodiversity. "The movement was almost like a game at first; we didn't know it would explode like it did," he recalls. In 1989, in Paris, Slow Food became international. Affiliates continue to spring up, and today Slow Food has 80,000 members in 100 countries.

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