SOC808 Test 1

Sociology definition

The study of groups and group interactions, societies, and social interactions

Micro-level- looks at small groups and individual interactions

Macro level- looks at trends among and between large groups and societies

Society definition

A group of people who live in a defined geographic area, interact with each other, and share a common culture

Culture definition

A group’s shared practices, values, and beliefs

Sociological imagination, lens, perspective

Helps individuals understand their own and other’s live sin relation to history and social structure (the broader view)

Sociologists apply systematic and scientific methods and do not let biases influence their conclusions

Food studies perspective

Uses a ‘systems’ perspective, looks at relationships and patterns surrounding food

Food system

includes all actors and processes that bring food from land to table and back again

Also looks at the social, cultural, political, economic, and ecological contexts that shape the system

Food studies

examines links between components of the food system, interdisciplinary field of studies

Being critical

Questioning facts- processes by which knowledge is accepted as fact

Questioning values – questions basic values that lie behind everyday
practices

Questioning power – questions power structures that create and
maintain these everyday institutions and ideologies

Questioning the status quo – considers possibilities for practical change

Foodscape

spaces in which people procure, acquire, eat, talk, and think about food

Political economy- influence of political and economic systems

Society and culture- how food and food practices are shaped by living conditions and ways of life

Environment- interactions with landscape and waterscapes

Human health- connects human health, food and agricultural policy

Wheel of power and privilege

Closer you are to core, the more likely you are to hold power, the further you are from the core, the less likely you are to hold power

Positionality

the personal values, views, and location in time and space that influence how one engages in the world

e.g. my personal opinions

Intersectionality

critically addressing marginalization based on multiple overlapping categories/identities that combine in unique ways to shapre our perspectives, oppression vs privilege in our lives

e.g. me as an east asian able bodied middle class young woman

Biological food choice determinants

Hunger and appetite, taste

Economic and physical food choice determinants

Convenience, country of origin, cost, availability and access

Attitudinal food choice determinants

Nutritional information, health impacts, environmental impacts, brand preferences, food quality

Psychological food choice determinants

Emotions and mental state

Social and cultural food choice determinants

Cultural influences, social influences

Food culture

the meanings of food, can be observed in specific institutions (cooking schools), within groups of people (eg. Cajun food), and as a part of everyday interactions (fad diets)

Understanding food culture helps us realize that food is not just an individual choice but also cultural

Food is socially constructed

Food and taste are socially constructed, product of shared meaning and social interaction

Taste can be a marker of class, one of necessity and one of liberty and luxury

Cultural capital

cultural knowledge as a form of capital, education and transmission of cultural capital creates social inequality through taste

Food is a symbol of culture and identity

Conveys traditions, beliefs, norms, and value, builds and maintains connections to cultural and family heritage, social identity

e.g. Ramadan or Christmas foods

Food conveys meaning

Helps us make sense of who we are and why we do the things we do

Food evokes memory

nostalgia, vehicle of memory and embodiment of experienes

Ethnic foods in the Global West

Restaurants tend to make ethnic food more palatable to American palate

e.g. Orange Chicken

Niches in one single ethnic category

typical in urban settings, may find two or more different types of restaurants to appeal to different diners

e.g. Omakase vs conveyor belt sushi

Food conveys notions of origin and source

Terroir- French concept of food items possessing qualities from where they are grown or produced in

Gastronationalism

Regional or origin designations and policies that label specific foods as nationally or regionally owned

e.g. Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, champagne, Wagyu

Iconic dishes are a form of nation branding

E.g. Pad Thai in Thailand, recognizable and creates identity

Food and identity politics

We do not know a specific culture just by eating its food, must be invested in who is marketing this food as authentic (e.g. Trader Joe’s Chinese food), food is politicized

Role of power in food

Consider social relation, power, and history. What is considered expensive vs non expensive cuisine (e.g. French food vs Filipino food?), it is bound with power and inclusion/exclusion

Quantitative methods

help us understand how people interpret healthy eating methods and what healthy eating means to them

Healthism

the moralization of health, the belief that one is responsible for their own health and it is wholly within their control

Following a healthy diet and staying fit = wellbeing

“it’s your own fault if you get sick”

Healthy eating study findings

Found healthy eating is central in evaluating people’s own and other’s eating habits, shapes decisions on what to eat

“Gold standard” no one can achieve, plays a key role in their identities (e.g viewing themselves as morally superior)

Gendered foods

Healthy eating was mostly seen as a feminine thing, while unhealthy/foods with a lot of meat were seen as masculine

Ties into gender roles- being a ‘good mother’ and feeding your children healthy food, body standards for women

Fat studies

interdisciplinary field that critiques implicit and explicit stereotypes, stigmas, and attitudes towards fatness and fat people

Fatness is socially constructed as the idea of fatness varies among cultures and history, disproportionately affects women

Food supply chain

shows steps required to get food from farm to plate, demonstrates the basic components and actors of food in the food system

Helps food companies improve efficiency, can sometimes improve food quality, improve sustainability, reduce social costs (e.g. unethical labor)

Companies often prioritize economic efficiency

Industrial diet

mass diet characterized by a consumption of variety of highly processed and low nutrition products

Often made with highly processed and engineered ingredients, such as bleached white flour and high-fructose corn syrup

Due to impact of large food companies on food production and agriculture

Industrial food system

generates cheap food, produced by fewer and larger farms, larger firms dominate

Masks market forces through perceived choice, shows increased rates of diet-related illnesses, has high food miles and contributes to growing food insecurity

Commodity crops

Corn, wheat, soybeans, canola

First food regime

1870-1930, focused on European imports of wheat and meat from settler states, and exporting European goods, labour, and capital

Second food regime

1950-1970, occurred after world war 2, cheap grains were sent as food aid to countries in Global South and were cheaper to buy from them

Agricultural products shifted from being final product to being industrial ingredients in manufactured food

Green revolution- increasing use of technologies and practices to increase yield, eg. fertilizers, irrigation, hybrid seeds

Large landowners/corporations power increased

Third (corporate) food regime

1980s-present, commodity crop production increased dramatically, crop standardization, increased global trade and international trade agreeements

Small farmers and developing countries are encouraged to adopt industrial agricultural systems and grow commodity crops

Consequences on small farmers, citizen health, and the environment

Alternative food initiatives

Self-governed, food related initiatives that aim to challenge dominant food system

Specific initiatives at community level, e.g. connecting small farmers and consumers, preserving land, and increasing access to healthy food

e.g. Farmers markets, Community gardens

Local food trap

uncritical assumption that local food automatically produces social, economic, and environmental benefits

e.g. local food may still include the usage of harmful pesticides, fertilizers, etc. or require more overall energy to produce

Three tiered food system

Top tier- Alternative food systems

middle tier- conventional/industrial food system (mass production

Bottom tier- emergency food system (e.g. food banks)

Issues with alternative food systems

Often expensive, reflective of social and economic inequities, focused on consumer-based solutions

Collaborative food networks

social structures consisting of interrelated groups, organizations, and individuals who aim up to scale up and out alternative food systems

Monoculture

cultivation or growth of a single crop on agricultural land

Food oases

neighbourhoods with superior access to food (considered to be the opposite of a food desert)

Mindset: luxuries vs conveniences

Food deserts

geographic areas that have limited access to healthy food

Low income areas with few nearby supermarkets

Mindset: survival, mental health (emotional eating), macro-level factors (corporate-level aspects)

Food swamps

geographic areas with adequate access to healthy food retail, but also overabundance of less healthy food and beverages

Usually low-income areas where there is disproportionate access to fast food, convenience stores, etc.

Food mirages

grocery stores are plentiful, but food prices are unaffordable for low-income households

healthy eating strategy aims

1. Improve healthy eating information (e.g. canada’s Food guide, nutrition labels)

2. Improve nutrition quality of foods (e.g. ban partially hydrogenated oils, sodium reduction)

3. Protect vulnerable populations (e.g. restricting advertising certain foods to children)

Supermarkets and role in food environment

Largest grocers: Loblaws, Sobeys, Metro

focus on volume and inventory turnover

Growth of supermarkets compared to markets with individual sellers/farmers

Social media and health/image

Influencers make it unable to identify hidden promotions/messaging through concepts of representation, promotion, and authenticity

Participants in studies are more likely to remember unhealthy eating ads rather than healthy eating ads

Exposure to image related content= increased dieting, unsatisfied body image, changes in food choice, increased comparison to others

Agriculture and environmental impacts

Removal of large forests for food production

Emission of greenhouse gases when land is cleared, such as burning forests

land use change (such as growing animals for meat) increases GHG emissions

Food miles, soil erosion, pesticide and fertilizer use, water pollution and overuse, etc.

Crop and livestock take up 80-85% of food system emissions totally

Agroecology

emphasis on workign with nature to mimic natural processes and conserve ecological integrity

Most programs are voluntary and are not implemented widely

e.g. organic farming, crop rotations and synergy

Food wastage

both food loss and food waste

Food loss

food that is not used for human consumption and is removed from supply chain before consumer interface (e.g. production, processing, transportation)

Food waste

food that is not used in human consumption, but is diverted at consumer interface (e.g. households, food service, retail)

Avoidable food waste- food that was at some point edible (e.g. expired food)

Unavoidable food waste- food that is not considered edible for humans (e.g. bones, eggshells)

Food waste concerns

can contaminate recyclables, sent to landfills and produces methane, a potent greenhouse gas, energy used to produce the food waste is esentially ‘wasted’

Why is food waste still happening?

Discarded if it does not meet visual or grading standards, human error, poor storage and inventory, best before dates, lacking economic incentive from industries to reduce

Best before dates

contributes to 23% of avoidable food waste

Although just a general guideline, consumers may discard perfectly fine items because best before date

Found on everything, sometimes used to drive sales

Different from expiry dates, which are strict and only required on select items

Food waste in production stage

crops not meeting quality standards, market prices are too low for harvest costs

Food waste in processing stage

retailer specifications, transportation issues, inventory and storage issues, mostly grains, produce, and dairy

Food waste in retail and restaurants

Poor inventory management, forecasting, and best before dates

Food waste at home

17% of avoidable food waste, forgetting about food, best before dates

Potential food waste solutions

Selling imperfect goods/produce at a cheaper price, considering ‘scale’ of wasted food at every point of the food system

Linear economy

Is when food is produced, sold, consumed, and leftovers are discarded

Circular economy

is when wasted food is considered a resource to be used and not garbage to be thrown away