LyrArc Article Gist
Why the Arc of Taste, an international catalogue of at risk foods put together by Italian journalists, is a question put to this author of Eating to Extinction, about the lack of biodiversity in foods. Basically it is about the enormous variety in nature that has been taken away from us by supermarkets and large fruit and vegetable companies that have limited everything to a few varieties in a supermarket for the sake of efficiency in commerce.

You may find it amazing, as Saladino says, Victorians may have eaten a apple a day for four years and never eaten the same one twice. So the first thing is to increase the awareness of people of how much diversity really exists in nature if it is allowed to reassert itself over simply food that meets the needs of commerce.

Looking clearly at what is lost, Saladino tells The Guardian in this interview, he is reminded of his childhood in Ribera, Sicily, where in the 70's there were so many varieties of oranges and so much color in the food compared to the blandness and limited variety of today's commerce based supermarkets. These small farms have disappeared, and now the varieties that came with them are also in danger unless this biodiversity is restored.