Slow Food Europe’s Summer List

Welcome to our summer list ! We have picked out the videos, podcasts and books that will inform and entertain you about food politics and the deep interconnections food has with our health and that of the planet. We hope they will help feed your reflection about the world you want to live in. Whether you are by the sea, up a mountain, working in your fields, or back in the office, there will be something here for you.

Have fun!

PODCASTS

• Slow Food Youth Network (SFYN) Podcast

Launched in 2020, the Slow Food Youth Network podcast share experience, tips and interviews of the young members of Slow Food communities, giving a voice to actors of the food chain whose stories are rarely told.

Apple | Spotify

• Slow Food EU Series

This brand-new series is dedicated to EU food and agriculture policies, in which experts gather to explain and discuss the agri-food hot topics in Brussels, to bring Slow Food’s listeners closer to the arena of EU negotiations. The first episode is dedicated to the debate around new GMOs in Europe.

Apple | Spotify 

• The final CAP down – all you need to know, the AGRIFOOD BRIEF by EURACTIV

This year saw the end of the negotiation process of the new EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), whose outcomes outraged environmental organisations. In this podcast, Euractive brings you up to speed with all the developments on this long awaited CAP reform and exactly what was decided.

• The Food Chain, by the BBC World Service

The Food Chain series examines the business, science and cultural significance of food, and what it takes to put food on our plates. Check out their episodes on why fried chicken became the most popular fast food meat or find out how the food industry convinced us to upsize our portions.

• Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg, by Food Tank

Food Tank’s Dani Nierenberg chats with people from the food industry about the hottest food news. She invites chefs, experts, and activists to outline their ideal food system—and how their own projects contribute to a better food system.

BOOKS

• Let’s Ask Marion: What You Need to Know about the Politics of Food, Nutrition, and Health – Marion Nestle

Let’s Ask Marion is a savvy and insightful question-and-answer collection that showcases the expertise of food politics powerhouse Marion Nestle in exchanges with environmental advocate Kerry Trueman. These informative essays show us how to advocate for food systems that are healthier for people and the planet, moving from the politics of personal dietary choices, to community food issues, and finally to matters that affect global food systems.

• Can Fixing Dinner Fix the Planet?, by Jessica Fanzo, Ph.D

As the world’s agricultural, environmental, and nutritional needs intersect—and often collide—how can consumers, nations, and international organizations work together to reverse the damage by changing how we make, distribute, and purchase food? This book calls on both individual consumers and those who shape our planet’s food and environmental policies to take action for a long-term change in our food systems to protect our health and that of the planet.

• For the Love of Soil: Strategies To Regenerate Our Food Production Systems, by Nicole Masters

Nearly a third of arable land worldwide has been lost to degradation and erosion over the past 40 years. With decades of experience in regenerative soil systems and their management, agroecologist Nicole Masters delivers solutions to rewind the clock on this increasingly critical crisis.

• Our Changing Menu: Climate Change and the Foods We Love and Need, by Michael P. Hoffmann, Carrie Koplinka-Loehr, and Danielle L. Eiseman

Our Changing Menu unpacks the increasingly complex relationships between food and climate change. Whether you’re a chef, baker, distiller, restaurateur, or someone who simply enjoys a good pizza or drink, it’s time to come to terms with how climate change is affecting our diverse and interwoven food system.

• Bite Back: People Taking On Corporate Food and Winning, by Saru Jayaraman and Kathryn De Master

The food system is broken, but there is a revolution underway to fix it. Bite Back presents an urgent call to action and a vision for disrupting corporate power in the food system, a vision shared with countless organizers and advocates worldwide. In this provocative and inspiring new book, editors Saru Jayaraman and Kathryn De Master bring together leading experts and activists who are challenging corporate power by addressing injustices in our food system, from wage inequality to environmental destruction to corporate bullying.

• We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast, by Jonathan Safran Foer

In We Are the Weather, Jonathan Safran Foer predicts that the task of saving the planet will involve a great reckoning with ourselves. As we have turned our planet into a farm for growing animal products, and the consequences are catastrophic, only collective action will save our home and way of life. According to the author, it all starts with what we eat―and don’t eat―for breakfast.

VIDEOS

• The Connections Between Ecological Destruction, Pandemics and the Food We Eat, with David Quammen

There are connections between ecological destruction, pandemics and the food we eat. And those connections are important. In this Slow Food’s Food Talk, Quammen explains why and how all the choices we make as individuals and communities have consequences. And these consequences affect the health of animals, of ecosystems, and our own health.

• Biodiversity Makes Love Possible, with Jonathan Franzen

What does it mean to be a green continent? What can we do as individuals, to make the planet more livable?  What’s the correct course of action? Slow Food reflects on some of the big questions with writer Jonathan Franzen.

• How It Is Made, Terra Madre Salone Del Gusto 2020

In this video series created for Slow Food’s Terra Madre 2020, you will discover skills and techniques, expand yout understanding and learn to reproduce recipes presented by Slow Food’ guests in your own home.

• Food Talks, Terra Madre Salone Del Gusto 2020

Ten minutes talks on specific issues by writers, economists, philosophers, anthropologists, ecologists, educators, as well as farmers, herders, fishers and cooks, all of whom offer their own vision of the environment, agriculture and food: a collective framework of the future we want and need.

• Rotten, Documentary Series on Netflix

Local farming is fading as profit margins decide what food makes it to our plates. The Netflix documentary series Rotten exposes the fraud, corruption, and the consequences on our health of today’s global food industry.

REPORTS

• A Long Food Movement: Transforming Food Systems by 2045, by Ipes Food & ETC group

This report maps out two very different futures for food systems, people and the planet. The first scenario looks at the next 25 years under “agribusiness-as-usual”, where the keys of the food system are handed over to data platforms, private equity firms, and e-commerce giants. The second one imagines civil society and social movements reclaiming the initiative and transforming financial flows, governance structures and food systems from the ground up.

• Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems: Insights on Sustainability and Resilience from the Front Line of Climate Change, by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT

This publication provides an overview of the common and unique sustainability elements of Indigenous Peoples’ food systems, in terms of natural resource management, access to the market, diet diversity, indigenous peoples’ governance systems, and links to traditional knowledge and indigenous languages. While enhancing the learning on Indigenous Peoples food systems, it raises awareness on the need to enhance the protection of Indigenous Peoples’ food systems as a source of livelihood for the 476 million indigenous inhabitants in the world.