The Italian writer and self-styled gastronome Carlo Petrini—founder of the International Slow Food Movement and author of a superb book on the subject—shrewdly contends that the promotion of food that is “good, clean and fair” can alleviate many of the world’s social, economic and environmental ills. Petrini encourages us all to become informed and engaged “co-producers” of the things we eat. By fostering vernacular, local food production we can eat food that is more varied and delicious, and at the same time we can “oppose the standardization of taste and culture, and the unrestrained power of food industry multinationals and industrial agriculture.”

Sustainable food is rooted in permaculture, defined as “a branch of ecological design, ecological engineering, and environmental design that develops sustainable architecture and self-maintained agricultural systems modeled from natural ecosystems.” The Permaculture Institute provides this list of key concepts and this page on urban permaculture.

Growing and preserving one’s own food is a good starting point for social, economic and ecological sustainability. Click any button to continue.

  

For tips on eating green go here.