"Eat it to save it" may seem like a counterintuitive strategy for preserving an uncommon species, but it may be key to their survival. It's a rallying cry for advocacy groups like Slow Food, activists and chefs who believe that the loss of biodiversity in our diets is a recipe for disaster. CNN founder Ted Turner is at the forefront of the movement, with his campaign to acclimate American palates to bison meat.
As chef Jay Pierce wrote in an Eatocracy op-ed, "If you want to preserve the taste of heirloom produce varieties, such as Arkansas Black, Newtown Pippin, and Ginger Gold apples, for future generations, you must buy them and eat them or the mechanics of capitalism will instruct farmers that there is no room in the marketplace for their product, and they will move on to something else, like Granny Smith or Red Delicious Apples or sub-divided exurban residential plots.
He continued, "The same principle applies to Purple Cherokee tomatoes, Lady Cream peas, Cushaw squash, sorghum, and more. The tastes will be lost, the flavors hybridized out of existence in an effort to prolong shelf-life and increase shippability from distant corners of the globe. Our tastes will be homogenized and, I think, our lives less full and rich."
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