I was driving through town the other day listening to NPR, when they began talking about a food fair happening in Turin. This particular fair was focused on protecting traditional and heirloom foods from culinary extinction and was a part of the Slow Food Movement.

Whoa!!! a Slow Food Movement??? I had to find out more about that. The Slow Food Movement was founded in Italy in the 1980’s and is about utilizing local, handmade ingredients and traditional cooking methods. Fruits and veggies are allowed to ripen on the vine, breads made from scratch, sea salt raked by hand...you get the picture. It is also more of a philosophy than a cuisine, it is defined by how a meal is prepared and TAKING THE TIME to prepare it well and to enjoy it too.

“The idea was to combat fast food...by looking right near you for something really good, local, and handmade; and putting in the effort to find quality ingredients which supports those farmers and artisans who carry on time-honored traditions.” Corby Kummar, author of “The Pleasures of Slow Food”

Now this is something I can sink my teeth into!

I am all for supporting local, independent farmers and the store where I do most of my shopping has predominantly locally grown and produced food and products. There is nothing like purchasing produce that was just picked that morning. It is still alive!

But in relation to the BTD I think of Slow Food in another way. To eat really healthy and in high compliance takes a strong commitment to spending TIME in food preparation. We all know that buying prepackaged foods will almost always have avoids in them; I’ve been shopping and cooking the BTD way for years and there just is no avoiding the avoids if you rely on someone else to do most of the food preparation work for you. So, what is it about us that we don’t want to spend TIME preparing food? Is there really something better we could be doing with our TIME? Think about it....

Learning about this Slow Food Movement has caused me to reflect on my own relationship to time and cooking. I am one of the lucky ones as I do enjoy cooking and have developed a lot of skills over the years through practice, practice, and more practice. But I still get frustrated with the amount of time it takes to prepare a compliant meal, especially with 3 blood types in the house. And when I feel like I don’t have enough time to prepare a meal is when I make concessions in my food choices.

So I am making a renewed commitment to TAKING THE TIME, and making time to prepare a meal as important as the quality of the food itself.