Fast Food has spread, well, quickly, through the Mediterranean, wreaking havoc on what has long been admired as the healthiest of diets.   Where fresh vegetables, fish, and olive oil once offered longevity and lower rates of heart disease and cancer; now cheeseburgers, pizza, and ice cream have bolstered the likes of diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.   What’s that you say?  Pizza and ice cream came from the Mediterranean?  Well, not exactly, and certainly not as the overly processed and excessively proportioned style served up by fast food joints.   This nutritionally and culturally bereft “cuisine”  is exactly what Carlo Petrini sought to combat when he founded Slow Food in 1986, in part to resist the opening of a McDonald’s near the Spanish Steps in Rome.

Photo: majorbonnet’s Flickr Photostream

I had the pleasure of attending Slow Food Nation over Labor Day weekend, and have also had the good fortune of dining in Italy, and I am consequently amazed that given an abundance of healthy and delicious food, people still reach for a Big Mac.   That said, while driving to the airport this morning, I felt strangely lured by the Golden Arches.   I did keep driving and can’t recall the last time I ordered from McD’s, but I’ll be darned if they don’t have a strong-hold on my Pavlovian responses instilled in me as a child.   I get it.   They offer a cheap, speedy and familiar package of fat and sugar (and maybe a toy).   Yum.   If you’re strapped for cash and time it seems like a simple choice.   And if you don’t think too hard or know what you’re really committing to, it’s easy to swallow.   But in our hearts we know better, or at least we’re trying.   And the sooner we as a nation and our friends around the world step out from under the shadow of the arches and their cohorts, the healthier and happier we shall be.
takepart to learn more about the hazards of fast food with Food, Inc.

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