A Sociology of Food
Walk into most
supermarkets today and the consumer is faced with choices. To buy organic or
genetically modified produce? Free-range or intensively farmed? Individual
decisions will be based on a whole raft of considerations: questions of price;
assessments of quality, freshness and taste; concerns for the environment
including such issues as food miles or animal welfare; life-style choice and
even self image. The simple act of choosing, say, carrots, is thus an
engagement (whether people choose to acknowledge it or not) with wider
bioethical debates surrounding the politics of food.
As we saw in chapter 1, sustainable
sources of food (such as battery farmed eggs) are not always the most ethical
sources (e.g. free-range eggs). And there are certainly many bioethical and
political issues surrounding the mechanisms via which we fill our mouths
Above
image developed at the University Of Nottingham