May 31, 2007

Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research 
2007 Saward Lecture featured:

Carlo Petrini, president and founder of Slow Food International speaking on how we can change "From Fast Food Nation to Slow Food Nation"  

This lecture is available in streaming video; 256kbps stream (best quality, high bandwidth) or 100kbps stream (good quality, low bandwidth)  To view it, select one of the links below. The video is 1 hour 28 minutes (1:28:00).

View Video - 256kbps View Video - 100kbps	Carlo Petrini "Fast Food Nation to Slow Food Nation" Presented May 8, 2007 Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall Portland, Oregon
	Lecture Introduction: Mary Durham, Ph.D. Vice President/Research Kaiser Permanente, and Director, The Center for Health Research Northwest, Hawaii and Southeast	00:00
	Lecturer Introduction: Erika Lesser Executive Director, Slow Food USA	15:40
	Lecturer: Carlo Petrini President and founder, Slow Food International Translation by: Corby Kummer Senior Editor, Atlantic Monthly	24:36

About the Lecture

The United States has the most industrialized food system in the world. Everyday we are inundated by processed foods and surrounded by fast food chains. As one scientist has argued, we are now engaged in a national experiment in mainlining glucose. So it's no surprise that we're in the midst of an obesity epidemic that threatens to overwhelm our health care system.

Do we have to eat, live, and die like this? Carlo Petrini, president and founder of Slow Food International, believes we can and must change our relationships with food. He believes we can move from being a fast food nation a slow food nation by reforming the way food is grown, transported, prepared and eaten. In the 17th Saward Lecture, Mr. Petrini will show us how we can bring about a food revolution based on the principles of good, clean and fair. The food we buy and eat must be naturally delicious and created with care from healthy plants and animals; sustainably grown, harvested, and distributed with methods that have a positive impact on ecosystems and biodiversity; and produced by people who are treated with dignity and justly compensated for their work. Offering models from nations around the world where people feed themselves without harmful industrial food production, he will show how we can regain control of our food, teach our children to value healthy food, and relearn the joys of sharing healthy meals with our families and friends.

About the Speaker

Carlo Petrini was born in 1949 in Bra, Italy and studied sociology at Trento University. In the 1980's, he began writing about food, wine, and eco-gastronomy (a term he coined) for major Italian newspapers and magazines. Since then, Mr. Petrini has been the driving force behind the creation of a number of important food-related organizations and associations, including

• Slow Food International, a movement that now includes 80,000 members in over 50 countries (1986)
• University of Gastronomic Sciences, the first academic institution to offer an interdisciplinary approach to food studies, with campuses in the Italian regions of Piedmont and Emilia-Romagna (2004)
• Terra Madre, a biennial conference held in Turin at which 5,000 small-scale farmers, cooks and food experts gather to discuss common problems and possible solutions.

Mr. Petrini has received an honorary degree in Cultural Anthropology from the Instituto Universitario Suor Orsola Benincasa of Naples, an honorary degree in Human Letters from the University of New Hampshire, and the Eckart Witzigmann Science and Media Prize from Germany. He was recently acclaimed as a "great innovator" in Time magazine's list of "European Heroes."

Mr. Petrini has been a regular contributor to the Turin-based daily, La Stampa, and now writes for the Italian national newspaper La Repubblica. He is also an author and has published Le Ragioni del Gusto (The Case for Taste) in 2001 and Buono, Pulito e Giusto. Principi di Nuova Gastronomia (Good, Clean and Fair. Principles of a New Gastronomy) in 2005. This book has just been translated into English and will be available starting in May under the title Slow Food Nation - Why Our Food Should Be Good, Clean and Fair.

For more infomation contact:

Terry Fitzpatrick - 503-335-6602, Terry.Fitzpatrick@kpchr.org