In The Ethics of Food, Gregory E. Pence brings together a collection of voices who share the view that the ethics of genetically modified food is among the most pressing societal questions of our time. This comprehensive collection addresses a broad range of subjects, including the meaning of food, moral analyses of vegetarianism and starvation, the safety and environmental risks of genetically modified food, issues of global food politics and the food industry, and the (...) relationships among food, evolution, and human history. (shrink)

The current global COVID-19 pandemic has led to a deep and multidimensional crisis across all sectors of society. As countries contemplate their mobility and social-distancing policy restrictions, we have a unique opportunity to re-imagine the deliberative frameworks and value priorities in our food systems. Pre-pandemic food systems at global, national, regional and local scales already needed revision to chart a common vision for sustainable and ethical food futures. Re-orientation is also needed by the relevant sciences, traditionally siloed (...) in their disciplines and without adequate attention paid to how the food system problem is variously framed by diverse stakeholders according to their values. From the transdisciplinary perspective of food ethics, we argue that a post-pandemic scheme focused on bottom-up, regional, cross-sectoral and non-partisan deliberation may provide the re-orientation and benchmarks needed for not only more sustainable, but also more ethical food futures. (shrink)

Reconnection between producers and consumers is often presented as an integral part of the local food narrative. However, questions can arise as to whether local food producers and their food purchasers align in mindset and the value proposition that underpins their involvement. This paper draws on interview data collected from producers and consumers participating in direct-sell meat operations to explore so-called value propositions between these two actors in local food initiatives in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. We suggest (...) that because producers and consumers value their participation and associated ‘reconnection’ for different reasons and experience practical limitations in satisfying diverse expectations, the ‘reconnection’ metaphor is complex and contingent—especially at the level of the individual. The findings suggest that new roles, realities and beliefs for each party in regard to marketing, customer relations, distribution, and convenience might predispose participants to be in favor of other arrangements if they became more readily available and were capable of guaranteeing both profitability for the producer and healthy foods for the consumer. (shrink)

This article explores how economic inequality in the United States has led to growing levels of poverty, food insecurity, and obesity for the bottom segments of the economy. It takes the position that access to nutritious food is a requirement for living and for participating fully in the workplace and society. Because of increasing economic inequality in the United States, growing segments of the U.S. economy have become more food insecure and obese, eating unhealthy food for (...) survival and suffering an erosion of “equality of capabilities” that undermines their ability to play a “full and active part in the functioning of community.” Unequal access to nutritious foods in the United States is attributable in part to an industrial food system that is designed to produce short-term profits for industrial food producers, processors, and distributors that extract surplus labor value through market concentration and opportunistic behavior at the expense of the long-term benefits for consumers, food workers, and ecosystems. Economic inequality, food insecurity, and the erosion of equality of capabilities in the United States have given rise to protest movements, social movements, social innovations, and some modest strengthening of regulations to make access to and consumption of healthy food a right for every person. Implications for business and society research are explored. (shrink)

In this paper, we critically interrogate the benefits of an interdisciplinary and theoretically diverse dialogue between ‘local food’ and ‘alternative food networks’ and outline how this dialogue might be enriched by a closer engagement with discourses of food sovereignty and the politics of scale. In arguing for a shift towards a greater emphasis on food sovereignty, we contend that contemporary discourses of food security are inadequate for the ongoing task of ensuring a just and sustainable (...) economy of food. Further, rather than treating the local and the global as ontologically given categories around which to contest the politics of food, it is our contention that recognising the socio-spatial aspects of the politics of scale has the potential to reinvigorate discourses of food security, food sovereignty and AFNs. Understanding scale as both fixed to a degree as well as contingent and dynamic has implications for an understanding of the role of food systems, for how the rescaled state privileges certain food systems and the possibilities for resistance through ‘jumping scale’ and food utopias. All of these aspects are significant if we are to fully comprehend and contest the challenges of envisioning and enacting real utopias of food sovereignty. (shrink)

Scholars and practitioners addressing the global food crisis have rarely incorporated perspectives from the world's religious traditions. This lacuna appears in multiple dimensions: until recently, environmentalists have tended to ignore food and agriculture; food justice advocates have focused on food quantities, rather than its method of production; and few scholars of religion have considered agriculture. Faith-based perspectives typically emphasize the dignity and sanctity of creation and offer holistic frameworks that integrate equity, economic, and environmental concerns, often (...) called the three legs of sustainability. Faith-based perspectives can provide new paradigms through which to assess food, consumption, and production and the attendant social relations; assess our scientific, economic, and social approaches; and acknowledge the moral and religious dimensions of the world food crisis. (shrink)

This article asks how the application of digital technologies is changing the organization of the agri-food system in the context of the third food regime. The academic debate on digitalization and food largely focuses on the input and farm level. Yet, based on the analysis of 280 digital services and products, we show that digital technologies are now being used along the entire food commodity chain. We argue that digital technologies in the third food regime (...) serve on the one hand as a continuation of established information and communication technologies, thus deepening certain features of the existing food regime such as the retail sector’s control over global commodity chains. On the other hand, digital technologies also introduce new forms of control and value extraction based on the use of data and pave the way for large tech companies to take over market shares in the agri-food sector. Finally, we find that multinational agri-food companies are starting to take on the business models of leading digital tech companies, for instance by developing digital platforms throughout the agri-food system. We argue that this shows that the broader economic restructuring of neoliberal capitalism towards digital capitalism is also making its way into the agri-food system. (shrink)

Many anti-obesity policies face a variety of ethical objections. We consider one kind of anti-obesity policy — modifications to food assistance programs meant to improve participants' diet — and one kind of criticism of these policies, that they are inequitable. We take as our example the recent, unsuccessful effort by New York State to exclude sweetened beverages from the items eligible for purchase in New York City with Supplemental Nutrition Support Program assistance. We distinguish two equity-based ethical objections that (...) were made to the sweetened beverage exclusion, and analyze these objections in terms of the theoretical notions of distributive equality and social equality. First, the sweetened beverage exclusion is unfair or violates distributive equality because it restricts the consumer choice of SNAP participants relative to non-participants. Second, it is disrespectful or violates social equality to prohibit SNAP participants from purchasing sweetened beverages with food stamps. We conclude that neither equity-based ethical objection is decisive, and that the proposed exclusion of sugar-sweetened beverages is not a violation of either distributive or social equality. (shrink)

Spatial localization, often demarcated by food miles, has emerged as the dominant theme in movements for more socially just and environmentally benign alternative food systems, especially in industrialized countries such as the United States. We analyze how an emphasis on spatial localization, combined with the difficulty of defining and measuring adequate indicators for alternative food systems, can challenge efforts by food system researchers, environmental writers, the engaged public, and advocacy groups wanting to contribute to alternative (...) class='Hi'>food systems, and facilitates exploitation by the mainstream players using “localwash” to maintain the status quo. New indicators are urgently needed because research shows that spatial localization in general and minimized food miles in particular are not adequate or even required for most of the goals of alternative food systems. Creating indicators to operationalize goals for alternative, local food systems requires asking the right questions to make sure indicators are not misleading us: What are the goals of alternative food systems? What actions and policies will most effectively achieve those goals? What is the potential of reducing food miles as an action and a policy for achieving goals? What are the best indicators for measuring progress toward goals? We discuss how these questions can be answered for a wide range of alternative food system goals via four categories according to the role of food miles reduction as an action and policy in promoting them: necessary and sufficient, necessary but not sufficient, potentially important, and potentially supportive. (shrink)

As concerns about the negative health effects of unhealthy eating and overweight/obesity increase, so too do efforts to combat obesity. Both the federal government, as well as state and local governments, have proposed and implemented a variety of healthy eating and obesity prevention policies. Many of these policies are controversial, facing objections that range from the practical to the ethical. In this paper, we consider one such policy — restrictions on food assistance programs that are meant to improve participants’ (...) diet — and one criticism of these policies, that they are inequitable. We take as our primary example the recent, unsuccessful effort by New York State to exclude sweetened beverages from the items eligible for purchase in New York City with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. (shrink)

The local food movement is, increasingly, becoming a part of the modern American landscape. However, while it appears that the local food movement is gaining momentum, one could question whether or not this trend is, in fact, politically and socially sustainable. Is local food just another trend that will fade away or is it here to stay? One way to begin addressing this question is to ascertain whether or not it is compatible with liberalism, a set of (...) influential political theories that have shaped and continue to shape our political system. In this paper, I argue that the local food movement is partially compatible with forms of liberalism that accept the limited application of the principle of neutrality, as there are two directions or trends within local food: (1) The systems based direction and (2) the individual focused direction. The systems based direction is not compatible while the individual focused movement is largely compatible with liberalism. I go on to argue that the two directions form a dialectic that increases the political and social sustainability of the movement as a whole. Conceiving of the individual focused and the systems focused directions as in opposition to one another is, itself, a mistake. (shrink)

In an increasingly globalized food economy, local agri-food initiatives are promoted as more sustainable alternatives, both for small-scale producers and ecologically conscious consumers. However, revitalizing local agri-food communities in rural agro-industrial regions is particularly challenging. This case study examines Grant and Chelan Counties, two industrial farming regions in rural Central Washington State, distant from the urban fringe. Farmers in these counties have tried diversifying large-scale processing into organics and marketing niche and organic produce at popular farmers markets (...) in Seattle about 200 miles away. Such strategies invoke the question, “How are ‘local’ agri-food networks socially and geographically defined?” The meaning of what constitutes “local” and/or “sustainable” systems merits consideration in the linking of these rural counties with distant urban farmers markets. Employing historical, in-depth interview and survey research, we analyze production and consumption networks and the non-market systems that residents in these counties access for self-provisioning and food security. (shrink)

The negative impacts of agriculture on the environment and the inequity that limits access to healthy food for the entire population impede sustainable development. This article reflects contributions to food security and alternatives for transitioning to sustainable food systems. It is concluded that food, as a human right, is a complex and transdisciplinary issue, which must be integrated as a transversal axis in the economic, social, environmental, governance, and cultural dimensions to contribute to sustainable development and (...) therefore the convenience of making the transition from the concept of food security to that of food sustainability. (shrink)

The notion of fairness is frequently invoked in the context of food and agriculture, whether in terms of a fair marketplace, fair treatment of workers, or fair prices for consumers. In 2009, the Kellogg Foundation named fairness as one of four key characteristics of a “good” food system. The concept of fairness, however, is difficult to define and measure. The purpose of this study is to explore the notion of fairness, particularly as it is understood within alternative (...) class='Hi'>food dialogues. Specifically, we wanted to answer the question of how alternative food entrepreneurs who are working to actualize fairness within local food networks understand this abstract notion. Using a multiple case study approach, the research for this project draws on semi-structured interviews that were conducted with key stakeholders in four alternative food businesses throughout the Midwest. (shrink)

Western consumers are increasingly demanding to know the provenance of their food. In New Zealand, Māori tribal enterprises are engaged in the food producing sectors of farming and fisheries and, like other businesses seeking to remain competitive in global markets, are responding to the demand for provenance through developing systems for communicating the origin of foods to consumers. However, Māori are doing this in their own way, in a manner that authentically reflects their own understanding of place and (...) expresses an indigenous animist perspective. It is argued that an animist approach to provenancing provides an authentic means of connecting Western consumers to nature in circumstances where they have become psychologically and physically abstracted. Animism provides a relational way of understanding the world, through which food products emerge as animated representations of reciprocal place-based relationships. It is considered that this indigenous approach can provide ‘an antidote’ to the alienating effects of modernity, where food products are experienced as inert compositions of elements that can be replicated and produced anywhere via industrial processes. Furthermore, it can provide a touchstone for differentiating between authentic provenance and the cynical use of provenance marketing that exploits the needs of alienated individuals for connection to place. A case study of indigenous provenance, Ahikā Kai, is offered to explain and illustrate the theoretical perspectives provided. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Heft: Ahead of print.

In recent years social financiers have been increasingly investing in alternative food systems to improve sustainability outcomes. However, social finance for alternative food systems remains small and marginalized. This article seeks to understand why this approach is not yet making a larger impact towards food system transformation. It does so by investigating a specific application of social finance through the case of Slow Money to get answers as to why social finance occupies a niche role in (...) class='Hi'>food system transformation. These answers provide helpful lessons for Alternative Food Networks (AFNs) seeking to transform food systems towards greater sustainability. This study tracks the intended impacts of these initiatives and provides insights about the potential role of social finance for promoting AFNs. Key themes emerged regarding the ability of social financing initiatives to support AFNs and transform the food system for greater sustainability. These themes resonate with the literature on AFNs in meaningful ways, but also highlight an important contradiction between systemic change and individual action. The findings show that the Slow Money model contains some useful elements for radical transformation but is ultimately limited in its ability to support deeper, transformative change. The conclusion advances recommendations for ways of enhancing the transformative potential of community financing initiatives in light of the findings, emphasizing the role of public investments. (shrink)

Amartya Sen’s work has contributed to shifting our focus from food availability to food access and utilisation, together called ‘nutritional capability’. Existing food insecurity instruments have been informed partially by the capability approach, but remain focused on material deprivation and its economic sub-dimensions. This narrow focus has become problematic, particularly in high-income countries, where material deprivation is largely overcome and food poverty manifests itself differently from that in low-income countries. Food poverty in high-income countries should (...) thus be approached from a ‘food capability’ perspective that fully recognises the multidimensionality of eating lives and the multiple factors that affect their dietary standards. To demonstrate the usefulness of this perspective, the Alkire-Foster method for multidimensional food poverty was utilised to analyse food poverty in Japan. The Alkire-Foster measure has a dual cut-off approach and its adapted method can produce a multidimensional food poverty index by setting reasonable food deprivation and poverty thresholds. The national data used for empirical demonstration was obtained from a web-based questionnaire conducted in Japan, to which 973 participants (aged 20–60 years) responded. The measurement identified a 20.6% food-poor population and inequalities in food capabilities among subgroups. Although economic deprivation was tightly linked to food poverty, the results suggested that gender- and age-based inequalities were larger than socioeconomic status-based ones, which reflected much wider societal problems in Japan than growing economic poverty, such as gender inequality and population ageing. The proposed measurement is effective for monitoring food policy impacts and complementing existing food insecurity assessment tools. The results will be useful for promoting social debate about what the minimal dietary standard should be in high-income societies. (shrink)

Obesity continues to be a global issue. In recent years, researchers have started to question the role of our novel yet ubiquitous use of digital media in the development of obesity. With the recent COVID-19 outbreak affecting almost all aspects of society, many people have moved their social eating activities into the digital space, making the question as relevant as ever. The bombardment of appetizing food images and photography – colloquially referred to as “food porn” – has become (...) a significant aspect of the digital food experience. This review presents an overview of whether and how the viewing, creating, and online sharing of digital food photography can influence consumer eating behavior. Moreover, this review provides an outlook of future research opportunities, both to close the gaps in our scientific understanding of the physiological and psychological interaction between digital food photography and actual eating behavior, and, from a practical viewpoint, to optimize our digital food media habits to support an obesity-preventive lifestyle. We do not want to rest on the idea that food imagery’s current prevalence is a core negative influence per se. Instead, we offer the view that active participation in food photography, in conjunction with a selective use of food-related digital media, might contribute to healthy body weight management and enhanced meal pleasure. (shrink)

In comparison to activist films with an “in your face” aesthetic, Food, Inc. seems positively tame. Rather than shock viewers with direct images of distasteful, disgusting, immoral, and outrageous practices in the food industry, it provokes and performs physical and moral disgust by its paradoxical (and perhaps quintessentially documentary) combination of proximity and immediacy with distance and delay. This close textual analysis reveals the film’s use of images to defer, deflect, and dodge, in such a way as to (...) emphasize the temporal ‘lag time’ that Sara Ahmed argues is intrinsic to disgust and that connects as well to what Malin Wahlberg calls ‘documentary time.’. (shrink)

Good nutrition plays an important role in the optimal growth, development, health and well-being of individuals in all stages of life. Healthy eating can reduce the risk of chronic diseases, such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and some types of cancer. However, the capitalist mindset that shapes the food environment has led to the commoditization of food. Food is not just a marketable commodity like any other commodity. Food is different from other commodities on the market (...) in that it is explicitly and intrinsically linked to our human existence. While possessing another commodity allows for social benefits, food ensures survival. Millions of people in United States of America are either malnourished or food insecure. The purpose of this paper is to present a critique of the current food system using four meanings of the common good--as a framework, rhetorical device, ethical concept and practical tool for social justice. The first section of this paper provides a general overview of the notion of the common good. The second section outlines how each of the four meanings of the common good helps us understand public practices, social policies and market values that shape the distal causal factors of nutritious food inaccessibility. We then outline policy and empowerment initiatives for nutritious food access. (shrink)

In response to a commentary on our research article (Azima and Mundler in Agric Hum Values 39:791–807, 2022), we address the argument that increased reliance on family farm labor with low or no opportunity costs leads to higher net revenue and greater economic satisfaction. Our response provides a nuanced perspective on this issue in the context of short food supply chains. We also examine the share of total farm sales from short food supply chains in terms of its (...) effect size on farmer job satisfaction. Finally, we emphasize the need for further research into the sources of occupational satisfaction among farmers involved in such marketing channels. (shrink)

Community supported agriculture programs are transforming the way people relate to food and agriculture. Many researchers have considered the transformative potential of CSAs on economic, social, and environmental relations. They illustrate how participants are embedded in broader political economic transformations. The same focus, however, has not been given to CSAs’ transformative impact on individual shareholders—especially in terms of their relationship to food and health. We draw together literatures from behavioral economics, econometrics, and political ecology to evaluate the potential (...) impacts of CSA participation on food lifestyle behaviors. Using primary data drawn from a survey of four groups with distinct food acquisition environments, we compare respondents’ self-assessed food-related behaviors along three different categories: produce versus processed food consumption, food away from home consumption, and food acquisition and interest in nutrition. By documenting between-group differences, we confirm that shareholders display significant absolute differences to other groups along numerous indicators related to the above-stated categories and in general assessments of health. These differences correspond directionally to behaviors public health officials identify as correlated to beneficial health outcomes. We conclude by theorizing how the food environments delineated by a CSA exchange relationship provide unique reflexive opportunities for participants to develop diverse food-related skills and behaviors. (shrink)

After the post-electoral crisis of 2010-2011, prostitution on social networks developed in Abidjan. Faced with the complexity of this new form of prostitution, actors have developed coping strategies, such as taking drugs and using food and body supplements. This study aims to analyze the perceptions surrounding the use of doping products and body supplements among prostitutes. The survey took place in Abidjan and involved 122 prostitutes. The data was collected from the non-directive interview. The results show that prostitutes associate (...) multiple meanings to their practices which constitute not only a last resort to alleviate the difficulties related to prostitution, but also a means to meet beauty criteria and increase visibility on dating sites. (shrink)

Food Deserts have recently beenidentified in the United Kingdom. They havebeen defined by Tessa Jowell, UK GovernmentHealth Minister, as an area ``where people donot have easy access to healthy, fresh foods,particularly if they are poor and have limitedmobility.'' The above definition is particularlyrelevant in Northern Ireland, where it isestimated that 32% of households do not haveeasy access to a car and it is recognized thatcertain groups in Northern Ireland are amongstthe poorest consumers in the United Kingdom.The phenomenon has been (...) further exacerbated bythe effect of large grocery retailers locatingon the periphery of towns and the subsequentdisplacement effect of independent retailers inthe town center. The resultant effect is suchthat disadvantaged consumers cannot accessfresh, quality, nutritious foods at anaffordable price. Preliminary researchindicates that certain consumer groups areexcluded from equitable shopping provision –possibly to the detriment of their healthstatus. Research methodology includes aconsumer questionnaire, consumer focus groups,interviews, and comparative shopping exercisesthat confirm an inability among vulnerableconsumer groups to achieve an affordable,healthy diet. This was further complicated bynon-car owners' and lower-income family unitsneeding to shop locally and more frequentlythan their higher-income, car-ownercounterparts. This was demonstrated with theuse of shopping diaries. Future research to beconducted includes a large-scale survey acrossNorthern Ireland to ascertain accessibility,availability, and affordability of qualityfresh foods and to distinguish the consumergroups who are most vulnerable. (shrink)

Government-sponsored school lunch programs have garnered attention from activists and policymakers for their potential to promote public health, sustainable diets, and food sovereignty. However, across country contexts, these programs often fall far short of their transformative potential. It is vital, then, to identify policies and organizing strategies that enable school lunch programs to be redesigned at the national scale. In this article, we use document analysis of historical newspapers and government data to examine the motivating factors and underlying conditions (...) that allowed South Korea’s universal free, eco-friendly school lunch program to become a tool for advancing social justice and ecological goals at the national scale. We analyze the socio-historical evolution and current status of the Korean school lunch program, combining the multi-level perspective with insights from environmental sociology and critical food studies, in order to shed light on the factors that enabled the program to become an innovative niche and articulate the opportunities and challenges it now faces. We identify the state-sponsored creation of what we call “precautionary infrastructure” as a key anchoring mechanism between the school food niche and agri-food regime. Precautionary infrastructure includes new supply chains, certification standards, and sourcing policies that provide a stable market for eco-friendly farms and small-scale producers, while minimizing the environmental health risks of school lunch by delivering organic and pesticide-free ingredients to on-site kitchens that serve free lunches to all students. This analysis offers insight into how public school-lunch programs can become protected niches that help drive sustainability transitions within agri-food systems. (shrink)

Food systems transformations require coherent policies and improved understandings of the drivers and institutional dynamics that shape (un)sustainable food systems outcomes. In this paper, we introduce the Chilean National Organic Agriculture Law as a case of a policy process seeking to institutionalize a recognized pathway towards more sustainable food systems. Drawing from institutional theory we make visible multiple, and at times competing, logics (i.e., values, assumptions and practices) of different actors implicated in organic agriculture in Chile. More (...) specifically, our findings identify five main institutional transformative logics underpinning the interests and actions of organic actors. However, we find that the Law was not motivated by these logics and did not advance them. Rather, the Law was designed to support a market niche targeted to elite consumers and to reinforce agricultural exports. As a result, the Law constrains rather than enables the practice of organic agriculture and access to organic food by consumers, especially at the domestic level. We note that attention to institutional logics in the analysis of food systems, and specifically food system transformation, is relevant to more comprehensive assessments of the transformational potential of food systems policies. We conclude that there is a need to further consider and make visible the way in which different drivers (i.e., laws) are constituted through and by diverse, and often competing, institutional logics. (shrink)

British biologist and science populariser J. B. S. Haldane was known as a contrarian, whose myriad ideas and beliefs would shift to oppose whomever he chose to argue with. Yet Haldane's support for synthetic food remained remarkably stable throughout his life. This article argues that Haldane's engagement with synthetic food during the 1930s and 1940s was shaped by his frustration with the status and direction of scientific research in Britain. Drawing upon the Haldane Papers, I reconstruct how Haldane's (...) interest in synthetic food emerged from the biochemical and physiological optimism of the early 20th century. His mid-20th-century writings were an opportunity for Haldane to voice his political opinions. He attempted to erase the conceptual divide between farm and factory, maintained that food shortages were a capitalist construct, and criticised British colonialism. By pointing out the failure of existing economic systems and governments to develop synthetic food, Haldane made the case that food production should be placed under the control of biologists. (shrink)

While there is much research about the extreme gentrification currently occurring in most major cities around the United States, the economic impacts of food gentrification remain unstudied. Understanding how profits are lost by people of color in the restaurant industry helps to realize how food, restaurants, and grocery stores play a larger role in accelerating or even triggering gentrification in neighborhoods. This paper explores the cultural and economic impacts of food gentrification in Portland using data collection and (...) data analysis. This data shows the quantitative impacts of gentrification in the food industry and how it contributes to the displacement of communities of color in Portland. (shrink)

California is a landmark setting for studying produce recovery efforts and policy implications because of its global relevance in agricultural production, its complex network of food recovery organizations, and its environmental and public health regulations. Through a series of focus groups with organizations involved in produce recovery (gleaning organizations) and emergency food operations (food banks, food pantries), this study aimed to deepen our understanding of the current produce recovery system and determine the major challenges and opportunities (...) related to the produce recovery system. Operational and systematic barriers to produce recovery were highlighted by both gleaning and emergency food operations. Operational barriers, such as the lack of appropriate infrastructure and limited logistical support were found to be a challenge across groups and were directly tied to inadequate funding for these organizations. Systematic barriers, such as regulations related to food safety or reducing food loss and waste, were also found to impact both gleaning and emergency food organizations, but differences were observed in how each type of regulation impacted each stakeholder group. To support the expansion of food recovery efforts, participants expressed need for better coordination within and across food recovery networks and more positive and transparent engagement from regulators to increase understanding of the specifics of their unique operational constraints. The focus group participants also provided critiques on how emergency food assistance and food recovery are inscribed within the current food system and for longer term goals of reducing food insecurity and food loss and waste a systematic change will be required. (shrink)

Children’s reasoning on food properties and health relationships can contribute to healthier food choices. Food properties can either be positive (“gives strength”) or negative (“gives nausea”). One of the main challenges in public health is to foster children’s dietary variety, which contributes to a normal and healthy development. To face this challenge, it is essential to investigate how children generalize these positive and negative properties to other foods, including familiar and unfamiliar ones. In the present experiment, we (...) hypothesized that children might rely on cues of food processing (e.g., signs of human intervention such as slicing) to convey information about item edibility. Furthermore, capitalizing on previous results showing that food rejections (i.e., food neophobia and picky eating) are a significant source of inter-individual variability to children’s inferences in the food domain, we followed an individual approach. We expected that children would generalize the positive properties to familiar foods and, in contrast, that they would generalize more often the negative properties to unfamiliar foods. However, we expected that children would generalize more positive and less negative properties to unfamiliar sliced foods than to whole unfamiliar foods. Finally, we expected that children displaying higher levels of food rejections would generalize more negative properties than children displaying lower levels of food rejections. One-hundred and twenty-six children, aged 3–6 years, performed an induction task in which they had to generalize positive or negative health-related properties to familiar or unfamiliar foods, whole or sliced. We measured children’s probability of generalization for positive and negative properties. The children’s food rejection score was assessed on a standardized scale. Results indicated that children evaluated positively familiar foods (regardless of processing), whereas they tend to view unfamiliar food negatively. In contrast, children were at chance for processed unfamiliar foods. Furthermore, children displaying higher levels of food rejections were more likely to generalize the negative properties to all kinds of foods than children displaying lower levels of food rejections. These findings entitle us to hypothesize that knowledge-based food education programs should take into account the valence of the properties taught to children, as well as the state of processing of the food presented. Furthermore, one should take children’s interindividual differences into account because they influence how the knowledge gained through these programs may be generalized. (shrink)

The article aims to explore the link between commodification of nature and commodification of food. The latter is in fact one of the most negative and controversial aspects of nature commodification. The examination of food commodification represents fertile ground for investigating the relationship between humans and nature. In this context, food sovereignty provides a useful paradigm that not only serves as an alternative to the current food regime, but also allows for the experiencing a different kind (...) of relationship between humans and nature. Food sovereignty represents a unique social movement in which community, political, and cultural rights are intertwined with the issue of food. Through its multidisciplinary approach and its strongly ethical component, food sovereignty constitutes an opportunity in order to contrast the progressive commodification of nature and of the environment. (shrink)

The fish-sharing patterns on Ifaluk Atoll underscore several limitations of the explanations of food sharing offered by Gurven and suggest that non-foraging labor activities may provide insights into reciprocity and punishment relevant for understanding food-sharing patterns. I also argue that future food-sharing studies should focus on signaling rather than resource holding potential (RHP).

“The moral issues generated by the food supply chain demand attention and analysis. There must be an ethical approach balancing profitability with the welfare of life and the conservation of the environment.” Lorice Stainer is a business ethics consultant and Visiting Fellow at Leicester University Management Centre; Alan Gully is Principal Lecturer in Business Studies, and Member for the Centre for Research in International Economics, at Middlesex University Business School; and Alan Stainer is Head of Engineering Management and Professor (...) of Productivity and Performance Management at Middlesex University. (shrink)

This research study investigates Victorian consumers’ understanding, awareness and perceptions of organic food products. Analysis of the quantitative data revealed that there are three major segments of consumers, i.e., pro-organics, reluctant consumers and organic sceptics. The buying and usage pattern of these segments has been identified as also their demographic profile. The findings of this study are strategically important for small and medium size organic food producers. They would be better able to practise and implement differentiation strategies for (...) the three identified segments of customers, thus allowing their marketing teams to emphasise the beneficial attributes of organic food products. (shrink)

This paper uses the survival strategies of food shelf clients to explore how food access, chronic disease, and spatial isolation shape the lives of low- and no- income urban citizens. The abundant availability of unhealthy food intersects with the presence of long-term health conditions to create a marginalized urban space where low quality commodity food is available, but exacerbates existing health conditions, is difficult to access, and does little to create food security. To survive, clients (...) have normalized a sustenance strategy of going to multiple food serving sites, carrying food long-distances and using SNAP benefits to make ends meet. However, this nourishment strategy is time-consuming and unsafe, demanding that people put themselves in precarious positions and push their bodies farther physically than is healthy. These food procurement strategies exacerbate their marginalization. Qualitative data from food shelf users is used to develop a theory of ambient struggling wherein the struggle for food access is unhealthy and time-consuming, making it difficult to improve their standard of living. (shrink)

Food-specific inhibition training (FSIT) is a computerised task requiring response inhibition to energy-dense foods within a reaction-time game. Previous work indicates that FSIT can increase the number of healthy foods (relative to energy-dense foods) children choose, and decrease calories consumed from sweets and chocolate. Across two studies, we explored the impact of FSIT variations (e.g., different response signals, different delivery modes) on children’s food choices within a time-limited hypothetical food-choice task. In Study 1, we varied the FSIT (...) Go/No-Go signals to be emotive (happy vs. sad faces) or neutral (green vs. red signs). One-hundred-and-fifty-seven children were randomly allocated to emotive-FSIT, neutral-FSIT, or a non-food control task. Children participated in groups of 4–15. No significant FSIT effects were observed on food choices (all values ofp> 0.160). Healthy-food choices decreased over time regardless of condition (p 0.050). Healthy choices decreased over time in the control group (p= 0.001) but did not change in the two FSIT groups (bothp> 0.300) supporting previous evidence that FSIT may have a beneficial effect on children’s food choices. Ensuring that children perform FSIT with high accuracy (e.g., by using FSIT in quiet environments and avoiding group-testing) may be important for impacts on food choices though. Future research should continue to explore methods of optimising FSIT as a healthy-eating intervention for children. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:I Am Food: The Mass in Planetary PerspectiveMaria Reis HabitoI Am Food: The Mass in Planetary Perspective. By Roger Corless. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2004. 104 pp.In this timely reprint of I Am Food: The Mass in Planetary Perspective (originally published by Crossroad in 1981), the late Roger Corless demonstrates the potential for spiritual and intellectual creativity contained within a stance of dual religious (...) belonging. Corless passed away in January 2007, but this book remains as a way for us to know him and to appreciate, as he did, the possibilities for spiritual revitalization and transformation that may be generated at the intersection and interpenetration of Christian and Buddhist traditions.Corless was raised as a Protestant but as a teenager became deeply engaged with the study of world religions and claimed Buddhism in particular as his own. Eventually he would become a scholar of Chinese Buddhism and a practitioner within the Gelugpa lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. At the same time, however, that the young Corless was being drawn to Buddhism, his connection to his Christian faith was also deepening; his profound experiences of the loving power of God could not be denied even if Christianity's theism could not be easily reconciled with Buddhism's doctrine of emptiness. Instead of leaving one religion for the other, he deepened his engagement with both. He did not seek to synthesize or reconcile Christianity and Buddhism but rather held these traditions together in a dynamic, creative tension and lived each one fully in its turn. When asked about his religious affiliation, Corless would respond playfully that he was "a Buddhist on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, a Christian on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturday, and a Gaia worshipper on Sundays." In I Am Food, however, Corless shows us that on some Sundays, specifically at the celebration of the Mass, he was both Christian and Buddhist at the same time. The great contribution of this book is in its offering of a fresh and transformative approach to the Mass through the application of the symbolic structures of Tibetan Buddhist mandala visualization as a template for active participation in the communion ritual. [End Page 161]Corless's focus in this book is the ritual of the Mass as celebrated within the Roman Catholic tradition. His conversion from Anglicanism to Catholicism occurred much to his "own surprise," prompted by his discovery in Catholicism of "a curious growing center which had great power and potential." This center "brought together many insights which I had picked up from other religions, and moved them to a new synthesis. This synthesis was concentrated in the oddly named 'Mass' " (p. 13). I Am Food offers a scholarly and personal meditation on the meaning, symbolism, and power contained in this central ritual of Catholicism. This project is signaled in the grammatically awkward but intriguing title of the book's first chapter, "Why Is the Mass?" Corless knows that many routine churchgoers never think or dare to ask this question, and the few who do ask it rarely find satisfactory answers. His book seeks to encourage such questioning among those who are in search of a personal religious experience "away from the dullness of minimalist routine" (p. 34). His very lively, humorous, and slightly irreverent style is intended to take the boredom out of the Mass, providing a very personal and original guide to it, different from the series of "excellent, but ultimately claustrophobic, devotional books on 'the spiritual meaning of the Mass'" (p. 13).Among Christian writings that were influential for his understanding of the Mass, Corless names The Mass in Slow Motion (1948) by Ronald Knox, which attempts to describe the inner meaning of the Mass, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's Hymn of the Universe (1965), which describes a vision of the world as sacrament and celebrates Mass as a cosmic event. While Teilhard de Chardin inspires Corless's "planetary perspective" on the Mass, Nicholas Casabilas's A Commentary on the Divine Liturgy (1978) sharpens the focus on "the mystical significance of each and every act of the priest and people" (p. 13).Corless argues that what makes the Mass seem stifling is the notion of... (shrink)

With “consumer demand” credited with driving major changes in the food industry related to food quality, safety, environmental, and social concerns, the contemporary politics of food has become characterized by a variety of attempts to redefine food consumption as an expression of citizenship that speaks of collective rights and responsibilities. Neoliberal political orthodoxy constructs such citizenship in terms of the ability of individuals to monitor and regulate their own behavior as entrepreneurs and as consumers. By contrast, (...) many proponents of alternative food networks promote the idea that food citizenship is expressed through participation in social arrangements based on solidarity and coordinated action rather than on contractual and commoditized relationships between so-called “producers” and “consumers.” This paper thus focuses its analysis on the strategies used to mobilize people as consumers of particular products and the ways, in turn, in which people use their consumption choices as expressions of social agency or citizenship. In particular, the paper examines how the marketing, pricing, and distribution of foods interact with food standards to enable and constrain specific expressions of food citizenship. It is argued that narrow and stereotypical constructions of the “ethical consumer” help to limit the access of particular people and environmental values, such as biodiversity, to the ethical marketplace. (shrink)

Some individuals have a neurogenetic vulnerability to developing strong facilitation of ingestive movements by learned configurations of biosocial stimuli. Condemning food as addictive is mere polemic, ignoring the contextualised sensory control of the mastication of each mouthful. To beat obesity, the least fattening of widely recognised eating patterns need to be measured and supported.

AbstractIn order to foster a transition of the food system toward more sustainable outcomes, scholars have increasingly pointed at the need for organizing strengthened food democracy. By increasing the participation of citizens and food system actors, democratic innovations, such as food policy councils, are believed to promote the quality and legitimacy of food policymaking. However, the question of whether and how food democracy initiatives do indeed contribute to more democratic modes of governance largely remains (...) unexplored. This study addresses this gap by performing a systematic literature review of the existing scholarship on food democracy, assessing democratic innovations for their contributions to four democratic goods: inclusiveness, popular control, considered judgment and transparency. The analysis shows that food democracy initiatives tend to be dominated by organized interests, have more influence on agenda-setting and implementation compared to decision-making, and generally aim for some form of deliberation or knowledge exchange. The precise selection mechanisms, processes and quality of deliberation, and transparency of democratic innovations remain important research gaps. The paper ends with a plea to better connect food democracy scholarship with the broader political sciences, as well as various suggestions for future research. (shrink)

In recent years, we have witnessed three parallel and intertwined trends: First, food retail and processing firms have embraced private standards, usually with some form of third party certification employed to verify adherence to those standards. Second, firms have increasingly aligned themselves with, as opposed to fighting off, environmental, fair trade, and other NGOs. Third, firms have embraced supply chain management as a strategy for increasing profits and market share. Together, these trends are part and parcel of the neoliberal (...) blurring of the older liberal distinction between state and civil society. In this paper I ask what the implications of these changes are from the vantage point of the three major approaches to ethics: consequentialism, virtue theory, and rights theory. What are the consequences of these changes for food safety, for suppliers, for consumers? What virtues (e.g., trust, fairness) are these changes likely to embrace and what vices may accompany them? Whose rights will be furthered or curtailed by these changes? (shrink)

The lack of consistency between people’s engagement in ethical issues and their food choices has received considerable attention. Consumption as “choice” dominates this discourse, understood as decision-making at the point of purchase. But ideas concentrating on individual choice are problematic when trying to understand how social and ethical issues emerge and are dealt with in the practices of buying and eating food. I argue in this paper that “consumer choice” is better understood as a political ideology addressing a (...) particular way in which everyday practices can be directed so as to solve social problems. It is a way that makes questions of power particularly challenging. Some assume consumer sovereignty, emphasizing consumer choice as a reflection of neoliberal deregulation and commercialization. Others worry that ongoing changes increase consumers’ powerlessness. None of these seem to capture that there is active regulation, where public as well as commercial and civil actors are making strong efforts to make people do the right thing—voluntarily. Labeling is the key measure. In practice, the individualized and rationalized model of responsibility depends not only on market opportunities, but even political and social expectations and trust. People may lack concrete capabilities and power to follow up on moral calls, but they may also have a different understanding of who is responsible and what is a “good deed,” or their actions may, in a Foucauldian sense, represent resistance. The paper will, with examples from European empirical studies, discuss how mobilization as well as inertia and disinterest emerge within specific political constellations and practical contexts. (shrink)

Previous work in the agri-food tradition has framed food auditing as a novelty characteristic of a shift to neoliberal governance in agri-food systems and has tackled the analysis of food “quality” in the same light. This article argues that agri-food scholars’ recent interest in the contested qualities of food needs to be situated alongside a much longer history of contested cultural attributions of trust in food relations. It builds on an earlier discussion suggesting (...) that, although neoliberalism has undoubtedly opened up new spaces for audit activity, older political and social dynamics operating around food audits were established long before the neoliberal historical moment. Breaking new ground (as far as is known) by looking further back than the early history of the organic social movement, it examines intersections of religious food auditing, migrant food culture, and commercial dynamics in food systems. Based on secondary sources, two contrasting case studies are presented to illustrate the flux and complexity for: New World Diaspora migrants to New York City of assuring food was kosher; and more recent Maghrebi migrants to southwest France of assuring food is halal. The article concludes by noting that the neoliberal moment stands not as the unique progenitor of a new style of food authority, but rather as the latest response to a wider rupture in the historically contingent arbitration of new forms of trust in food. (shrink)