What about that snail on a leaf?

We gardeners hate those disgusting leaf-chomping snails, but we love the Slow Food USA   ARK of TASTE snail. When an Ark of Taste snail is shown beside an available food listing, it means that its grower is helping preserve a food variety that industrial standardization threatens to eliminate. In the United States today, there are some 200 foods on Slow Food’s endangered list.

While the Slow Food movement in general attempts to improve sustainability practices worldwide, one of its close-to-home activities is that of raising public awareness to the weakening availability of some wonderful food varieties. Here in the Pacific Northwest that list includes geoduck, Olympia native oyster, black republican cherry and Ozette potato.

Slow Food says that over 800 varities of food world-wide are on the endangered list. The good news is anybody can be a part of biodiversity just by producing, selling or consuming foods that are on the list.