The Routledge Handbook of Food Ethics (original) (raw)

Food and identity: Food studies, cultural, and personal identity

2014

This study was inspired by the author’s academic travel to Naples, Italy to study the food habits of those who live in that region and follow the Mediterranean Diet. The author introduces the concept of food studies and explores the relationship of food to the human experience. Food studies is not the study of food itself; it is an emerging interdisciplinary field of study that observes the intricate relationships among food, culture, and society from a number of disciplines in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Through food studies, one examines the relationships people have with food, and analyzes how this association discloses an enormous amount of information about them. The food choices made by people, either as individuals or as a group, can reveal views, passions, background knowledge, assumptions and personalities. Food choices tell stories of families, migrations, assimilation, resistance, changes over times, and personal as well as group identity. Food studies ...

Food and health : individual, cultural, or intellectual matters?

2021

In personalized nutrition, food is a tool for good health, implying an instrumental relationship between food and health. Food receives a secondary value, while health would appear to be a descriptive biological concept. This article gives an introduction to cultural understandings of food and health. The wider definition of food and health is explored in relation to the commonly used scientific approach that tends to take a more reductionist approach to food and health. The different discourses on food and health are being discussed in relation to ethical aspects of personalized nutrition. The success of personalized nutrition is likely dependent upon the ability to integrate the scientific approach with everyday cultural, emotional, ethical, and sensual understandings of food. Health theories can be divided into two principal rival types-biostatistical and holistic. Biostatistical focuses on survival, while holistic focuses on ability as a precondition for health. Arguments in favor of a holistic and individualistic theory of health and illness are presented. This implies a focus on the ability of the individual to realize his or her ''vital goals.'' A holistic and individualistic health concept may have a reinforcing effect on the individualized approach in personalized nutrition. It allows focus on individual health premises and related dietary means of health promotion, as well as an individualized perspective on the objectives of health promotion. An individualistic notion of health also indicates that people with high levels of vital goals benefit more easily. To reach beyond these groups is likely difficult. This potential injustice should be balanced with global preventive medical programs. Keywords Personalized nutrition Á Ethics Á Food Á Health This study was conducted on behalf of the Food4Me project. Food4Me is the acronym of the EU FP7 project: ''Personalised nutrition: an integrated analysis of opportunities and challenges'' (Contract No. KBBE.2010.2.3-02, Project No. 265494). The parties involved in the project are listed on the project's Web site http://www.food4me.org/.

You are what you eat? Vegetarianism, health and identity

Social Science & Medicine, 2008

This paper examines the views of 'health vegetarians' through a qualitative study of an online vegetarian message board. The researcher participated in discussions on the board, gathered responses to questions from 33 participants, and conducted follow-up e-mail interviews with eighteen of these participants. Respondents were predominantly from the US, Canada and the UK. Seventy per cent were female, and ages ranged from 14 to 53, with a median of 26 years. This data is interrogated within a theoretical framework that asks, 'what can a vegetarian body do?' and explores the physical, psychic, social and conceptual relations of participants. This provides insights into the identities of participants, and how diet and identity interact. It is concluded that vegetarianism is both a diet and a bodily practice with consequences for identity formation and stabilisation.

Eating your life-script: anchoring identity

Academia Letters, 2021

'You are what you eat!' if this were simply a matter of consuming adequate nutrients, no-one would argue. But food consumption is more than nutrition: it involves social interactions, cultural rituals, culinary knowledge, and the instrumental expression of symbolic power. During childhood, the rules associated with eating are absorbed with every mouthful, shaping our sense of identity and belonging. Autobiographic reflection on some memorable childhood incidents will reveal the religious rituals and family beliefs symbolically passed down to me as part of the 'civilising process' of eating meals at home, and some of the mistakes I made when eating with others.

Awakening to the politics of food: Politicized diet as social identity

Appetite, 2016

In this qualitative study, the process of developing a politicized identity around diet was explored through a social psychological lens. Applying one of the most influencial models of group identity development proposed by Cross (1978) in which an "encounter" experience spurs an awakening into a politicized identity, we asked 36 participants who followed alternative diets due to political reasons to describe their unique encounter experiences that brought them to their politicized awakening. Their self-identified diets included pescetarian, vegetarian, vegan, raw, non-GMO/organic, and reduced meat consumption. Participants described the rationale for their diets, their "encounter" or awakening to their politicized diets, and whether they viewed their diet as a part of their identity. Using thematic analysis, we identified four key types of encounters that sparked their politicization: a series of integrated events, exposure to educational materials, a direct vis...

‘Doing Food Differently’: Reconnecting Biological and Social Relationships through Care for Food

The Sociological Review, 2009

Food' is essentially a biological entity, consumed by living creatures: plants, fungi, fish, animals or their products, are processed by various means at domestic or factory sites to produce the cornucopia of dishes, cuisines and ways of eating which have long characterized food systems (Tansey and Worsley, 1995; Beardsworth and Keil, 1997). A marked feature of the modern global food system is its divorcing of foodstuffs from the biological: increasingly, food is an industrialized product of global capitalism. Thus the drive is to make it uniform (remove as much natural variation as possible-carrots are always orange, and largely taste the same), safe (containing as few pathogens or contaminants as possible, and as good for consumer health as possible with minimum effort on the consumers' part) and predictable in processing, appearance, cost, preparation and taste. These attributes apply to raw ingredients (such as vegetables, fruit, meat) as much as to processed foodstuffs (whether longstanding and familiar such as bread, or newer, ready prepared dishes) (see for example Tansey and Worsley, 1995; Lawrence, 2004; Steel, 2008). Furthermore, this separation contributes to the emotional, intellectual and cultural distancing which people experience in their understanding of and relationship to food, a circumstance lamented by primary producers and policy makers and subject to growing academic attention (eg Cook