What's all this about the Slow Food Revolution? No you don't have to eat snails, or chew each bite 100 times, or learn a secret handshake. But watch out, you might find yourself having fun with a cheese grater and a new friend....Slow Food is an international movement (started in Italy, of course) that reminds us about simple pleasures of taking the time to slow down to enjoy life with family and friends. With active chapters of Slow Food on Oahu and The Big Island, and growing interest in sustainable farming, and supporting locally produced foods of the islands Slow Food happenings, it's time to stop and smell the flowers and share the pleasures (and healthy eating habits) of Slow Food.

Everyday can be enriched by doing something slow - making pasta from scratch one night, seductively squeezing your own orange juice from the fresh fruit, lingering over a glass of wine and a slice of cheese while watching the sunset- even just deciding to eat lunch sitting down instead of standing up.

Some Quick ways to the Slow Food Revolution
Visit a local farmers' market.
Invite a friend over to share a meal.
Visit a farm in your area.
Create a new food memory for a child! Let them plant seeds or harvest greens for a meal.
Start a kitchen garden.
Learn your local food history!
Get local. Discover a famous food that comes from your neck of the woods, or island.
Recreate your grandmother's favorite recipe.
Trace your food sources, know what's in your soil.
Grow and share your produce.. even if it's just sprouting a lentil salad from the windowsill
Pound some poi, or make mochi together, add your mana to your food, and make it a tradition!
Read your food labels, then go and eat food that doesn't come with any labels at all!

So What is Slow Food?

Slow Food is part of a movement to celebrate and protect sustainable agriculture, "real" food, and the individual cultures that gave birth to our culinary patrimony. This attention to food is not the gourmet-driven pursuit of a culinary elite, but a grass-roots movement to save that which is most precious to us all-the unassailable pleasure of food grown with respect for the earth, and for the people who grow and eat it.

The Slow Food Movement not only focuses on a slower, more natural and organic lifestyle that complements nature, but also works to preserve endangered culinary traditions, conserve natural biodiversity, and protect agricultural practices .

Great salads, soups, main courses, desserts & breakfast dishes flavored with...TEA! Who would have thought tea would be so good in food? Here's just one of 19 cooking with tea recipes we have on the site:

Carrot Coconut Ginger Oolong Soup
1 1/2 tbsp. peanut oil
1 chopped leek (2 cups)
2 chopped carrots (2 cups)
1 finely chopped clove of garlic
3/4 chicken or vegetable bouillon stock
1/2 tsp. curry powder
1/2 tsp. salt
pinch red chili flakes
3 cups water
4 bags Water Sprite (Oolong tea)
1 cup coconut milk

The Big Island has several world-class restaurants, but there are two that stand out: Soontarees Deli and Nasturtium Cafe. Read these short summaries and click the links to read the full reviews and get location information.

Nasturtium Cafe
With two locations, one in Kealakekua, and another in Kailua-Kona, Nasturtium calls itself "Healthy gourmet cuisine with an international flair" but exceeds this tag with several excellent dimensions. Notably the positive local vibe, colorful spacious atmosphere and the top quality local organic ingredients.

Soontarees Deli
Visit Soontarees and you will find diverse, tasty offerings of dynamic world cuisine using fresh local ingredients. But the most color comes from the steady stream of diverse local people who seem most excited about seeing Soontaree even before the food.

The hot days of Indian Summer are the perfect time to cleanse before the seasons change to wetter, cooler weather. Our appetites are lower, there is an abundance of fresh fruits and veggies to juice and munch on, our moods are light and free and the sunsets are longer and beautiful to behold. Try these cleansing juices for your next "cocktail" hour... Here are two great recipes for cleansing drinks:

The Master Cleanse

Watermelon Agua Fresca

HawaiiHealthGuide.com has hundreds of resources for healthy living... Check out our directory, health talk articles, and upcoming events for resources on YOUR island!

Here are our picks for this month:
Food/Supplements:
Spirulina grown in Hawaii

Taro, Hawaiian Soul Food

Health advice:
Ayurvedic Approach to a Light Diet

Service:
Just add water: (Organic Garden)

There are many health-related websites, and many sites that focus on Hawaii. (And they're all in our directory...)

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Citing possible harm to Hawai'i's 329 endangered and threatened species, a federal district judge has ruled that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in permitting the cultivation of drug-producing, genetically engineered crops throughout Hawai'i. The court found that USDA acted in "utter disregard" of the ESA, and also violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), by failing to conduct even preliminary investigations prior to its approval of the plantings.

The August 10 decision represents the first federal court ruling ever on "biopharming," the controversial practice of genetically altering food crops to produce experimental drugs and industrial compounds. Biopharming has provoked the ire of the food industry, public interest groups, and farmers concerned about contamination of foods and the environment with potent drugs, and potential economic losses from adulterated food.