Carlo Petrini, to WineNews: it is our lives that must be sustainable, to regenerate us

“Never as in this historical moment are we aware of the importance of the food system, all, as a whole, with respect to environmental degradation. And therefore how the need to regenerate the way we eat and produce is a need that can no longer be postponed, on pain of the fact that we become complicit in an environmental upheaval that has no comparison in history. Thinking that this food system is the main responsible for 37% of CO2 produced is impressive ”. Slow Food founder Carlin Petrini said this in comparison with WineNews, to whom we asked the meaning of the “RegenerAction” at “Terra Madre Salone del Gusto” at the Parco Dora in Turin, a former foundry on the outskirts that is now an urban park and which was chosen by Chiocciola to host the most important world event dedicated to food because it is a symbol of regeneration. A claim that, Petrini explained to us with its great clarity, “means implementing virtuous behaviors: first, returning in our purchases to the seasonality of products, second enhancing the economy and local producers, third reducing waste starting from our refrigerators, fourth reduce the percentage of animal proteins compared to vegetable proteins, because the consumption of meat is equally impressive, it produces Co2 and absorbs water ”. Instead of abusing so much of the word “sustainability” when talking about our future, we must make sure that our lives are first and foremost sustainable..
“Many see the reduction of meat consumption as a form of mortification, but it is not so – recalls the sociologist – when I was young at the end of the 1950s, Italians consumed 40 kg of meat per capita per year. Today we are at 95. But it is not that in those years we ate badly: the National Institute of Nutrition declared that it was the moment of their existence when Italians ate better. Now this exaggerated consumption of meat also has health complications. It is said that these are individual choices: no, because if they become collective you know how much water they save and how much less CO2 we produce. I am not saying to go back to 40 kg, but if we reposition ourselves even around 60 kg, we would save a lot with a very simple act, gaining health ”.
Choices that Slow Food has always made and invites us to make, and which are of direction but also political, without ever asking us to give up pleasure, indeed, because with the Magone revolutions are not made as Petrini says, and if there is one. it is one thing that the Snail has taught us is the value of food, which has made us passionate, in life as in our profession. “It is like this in every aspect of our life. The fact that the two most important functions that guarantee the continuation of the species, eating and making love, are supported by pleasure is an extraordinary thing, and we cannot reduce it to mere crapula and eating and eating, or just boring reflections. . We have to find a way to balance pleasure with responsibility, starting with a relationship with food and wine that is more constructive and engaging “.
In the dialogue, beautiful, on the “Economy of Francis” at the opening of “Terra Madre Salone del Gusto”, Slow Food spoke of sustainability, adding to the environmental, economic and social sustainability, spiritual sustainability and the search for meaning, because they are also fundamental in the revolution of food. “First of all – explains Petrini – we have to correct the shot with respect to the fact that a good part of the Italian left and the secular world have confused spirituality with religiosity. They are two different things: spirituality is an indispensable thing for everyone, a bit like sexuality. It is not a prerogative of believers, even the secular world has its own spirituality, and the great tradition of the workers and socialist world also had a very important spiritual substratum. Claiming spirituality for all living is a way of having an approach to the mystery that is fundamental. Einstein said: people who respect the mystery are those who have a more important worldview. Without respect for the mystery you cannot see everything else ”.
Speaking of living in a sustainable way, in recent days, talking about wine tourism at the “World Forum” of the UNWTO, hosted for the first time in Italy, in Alba, in his beloved Langhe, Petrini, one of the most authoritative international voices when it comes to food, and not only, has launched what WineNews interprets as an alarm and that we share: wine tourism is beautiful, which is a formidable driver for the territories, but even before that, those who live and work there must be happy, while many of our beautiful rural villages run the risk of becoming “open-air” shopping centers by following the logic of profit only. “Tourism has very important positive aspects – Petrini reiterates – but in the balance of a community it can also generate elements of tension and suffering. We must absolutely prevent it and to do this we must start from the happiness of the inhabitants, which is not an option, but the essence. I gladly go to visit a place if there are people who smile and welcome you, and if there is an atmosphere of complicity. Where, on the other hand, I am only cared for and squeezed as a tourist and therefore as a bearer of money it is not good. And I will not have the same pleasure that I feel where the joy of living I feel it in the way of being. I gave the example of how many of our villages today famous from a tourist point of view are becoming socially impoverished, in the sense that there are no longer the shops and taverns that were the essence of Italy. You will not think that in these villages you went (and you do, ed) to see only the works of art: of course, but then you felt that they had their own vitality in which to become accomplices. If this is no longer there, all the tourism in the world will never be able to make up for what we have lost. But I did not make my speech in critical terms, but in constructive terms, because if we have a vision that only promotes tourism and does not respect the territories, we lose their soul ”.
With his extraordinary, revolutionary and engaging ideas, in his long career, Carlo Petrini is among the personalities who have most influenced the reflection on food worldwide, together with Slow Food and the network of communities that today, from all over the planet , make up “Terra Madre”, dialoguing with politicians of all sides and colors. Today, if we ask him to indicate what should be the first point on the political agenda of those who must govern agricultural and agri-food change, the founder of Slow Food replies that “the most important thing is to strengthen food sovereignty. A choice that is not only combined in a national dimension, but also in that of a village. Being sovereign, that is, being the ones who decide what to sow, what to plant and what to eat, is one of the main essences of our happiness and also of the food economy.. Unfortunately, over time we have lost this sovereignty and have become dependent on foodstuffs arriving from other continents. Food makes absurd journeys: let’s think for example of tomatoes that come from China, they are canned like peeled tomatoes with the Italian name, then they leave to be sold in Africa as Italians, costing less than the tomatoes of Africans. Where is the food sovereignty? This is speculation, which kills the food sovereignty of African products and makes this commodity walk in an incredible way. I gave an example, but if each of us this evening when we sit at the table looks at how many km the food we are consuming has gone, would be speechless. So the first thing to put on the agenda is precisely this: to make sure that as much food sovereignty as possible is the result of the territories. Giving more value in food production to the local economy than to a planetary dimension where goods move without meaning. And I say this also with respect to many people who care about organic and then buy organic pears that come from Argentina: that pear hurts more than a conventionally produced one, but at your home. This is common sense, and it must lead us to understand that the strength of food is being able to remain, with possible productions, for the most part in the territories “.