Food Movement Research Articles

Eating alone, or commensality redefined? Solo dining and the aestheticization of eating (out)

Consumers’ increasing fascination with recreational eating out has contributed to numerous transformations in the upmarket restaurant practice. This paper explores such changes in regard to the “social” aspects of eating out, focusing particularly on the “cultural phenomenon” and practice of eating publicly alone (solo dining). Specifically, the paper extends previous portrayals of solo dining as a bundle of aloneness and togetherness by exploring such interplay in the context of the aestheticization of eating and/or the aesthetic food(ie) movement. Based on the interviews of Finnish food/restaurant enthusiasts and exponents of solo dining, the paper firstly depicts solo dining as a practice in which eating publicly alone is celebrated for the sake of enhanced aesthetic immersion. Secondly, the paper argues that solo dining can indeed be interpreted as a form of eating together and depicts the myriad ways, both concrete and “anonymous”, through which solo restaurant meals are shared between like-minded enthusiasts. Thus, the aesthetically oriented slice of solo dining becomes not understood as a complete departure from the ideal of shared public meals but as an alternative manifestation of commensality within an enthusiasm-based consumer group characteristic of late modern consumer culture.

The power to convene: making sense of the power of food movement organizations in governance processes in the Global North.

Dominant food systems, based on industrial methods and corporate control, are in a state of flux. To enable the transition towards more sustainable and just food systems, food movements are claiming new roles in governance. These movements, and the initiatives they spearhead, are associated with a range of labels (e.g., food sovereignty, food justice, and community food security) and use a variety of strategies to enact change. In this paper, we use the concept of relational fields to conduct a post-hoc analysis of nine cases, examining how social movement organizations and other actors actively create new deliberative governance spaces. We argue that successes are related to the “power to convene,” a process-oriented approach that increases movements’ capacity to mobilize; leverage different types of power; and integrate, coordinate, and build a systems-oriented vision. The power to convene and create deliberative spaces is demonstrated in a variety of contexts and often results in outcomes that further movement aims, including policy change and repositioning food movement actors vis-à-vis others in the field. Our findings suggest that success is not only measured as policy outcomes, but as an advantageous repositioning of social movement actors that enables them to be part of governance processes beyond simple policy advocacy.

Good vs. Fair and Clean: An Analysis of Slow Food Principles Toward Gastronomy Tourism in Northern Iran

ABSTRACT In the tourism sector, food is of great importance, and one of the main concerns of tourists for short- and long-term trips is the choice available. In particular, in the past few years, rising demand for local gastronomy has emerged, which is still to be fully understood. The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors affecting the desire for local food among tourists and travelers in the northern region of Guilan (Iran). The paper presents the results of quantitative research conducted among tourists and travelers. Data were collected through a questionnaire, whose reliability, as measured by Cronbach’s alpha method, was higher than the acceptable value of 0.7. Motivations were clustered around the three categories of Good, Fair, and Clean, which are inspired by the motto of the slow food movement. The findings of this research shed light on the hierarchy of values of tourists, suggesting that the Good factor was the key issue motivating their choice, while Fair and Clean had secondary roles. This research suggests that motivation does not preclude the implementation of positive initiatives relating to sustainability, but rather raises questions about the right form of communication concerning local cuisine to be employed.

Food justice for all?: searching for the \u2018justice multiple\u2019 in UK food movements

In this paper, we examine diverse political philosophical conceptualisations of justice and interrogate how these contested understandings are drawn upon in the burgeoning food justice scholarship. We suggest that three interconnected dimensions of justice—plurality, the spatial–temporal and the more-than-human—deserve further analytical attention and propose the notion of the ‘justice multiple’ to bring together a multiplicity of framings and situated practices of (food) justice. Given the lack of critical engagement food justice has received as both a concept and social movement in the context of the United Kingdom (UK), we draw upon empirical research with practitioners and activists involved with heterogenous food movements working at the local, regional and national level and apply the justice multiple concept to the interview data. We highlight the diverse ways that justice is discussed in terms of access, fairness, empowerment, rights and dignity that reflect established organisational discursive framings and the fragmented nature of food system advocacy and activism. Based on this insight, we argue that a plurivocal, relational conceptualisation of socioecological justice can help enhance the multiple politics of food justice, pluralise UK food movement praxis and nurture avenues for broader coalition-building across the food system.

\u2018Workable utopias\u2019 for social change through inclusion and empowerment? Community supported agriculture (CSA) in Wales as social innovation

The focus of this article is community supported agriculture (CSA) as an alternative food movement and a bottom-up response to the problems of the dominant food systems. By utilizing social innovation approach that explores the relationship between causes for human needs and emergence of socially innovative food initiatives, the article examines how the CSA projects emerge and why, what is their innovative role as part of the social economy and what is their transformative potential. Based on qualitative data from four different models of CSA case studies in different regions of Wales, UK, and by using concepts from an alternative model for social innovation (ALMOLIN) as analytical tool, the article demonstrates that the Welsh CSA cases play distinctive roles as part of the social economy. They satisfy the needs for ecologically sound and ethically produced food, grown within communities of like-minded people and they empower individuals and communities at micro level, while at the same time experiment with how to be economically sustainable and resilient on a small scale. The paper argues that in order to become ‘workable utopias’, the CSA initiatives need to overcome the barriers that prevent them from replicating, participating in policies and decision-making at macro level, and scaling up.

Semi-dry storage as a maturation process for improving the sensory characteristics of the edible red seaweed dulse (Palmaria palmata)

The potential of seaweeds as food is gaining increasing interest among Western consumers. This trend is supported by the nutritional benefits of several species such as Palmaria palmata. Product flavor is a major factor governing consumer acceptance. Developing more attractive flavors in edible seaweeds is a key to sustain the current health food movement based on this resource in Europe. Semi-dry (SD) storage of P. palmata was investigated as a mean to increase its sensory quality. SD-samples containing 20% moisture and dried (D) samples (6% moisture) stored up to 126 days were studied. SD-samples stored for a long period (61 and 126 days) developed a distinct sweet, rich, complex flavor and odor as well as a softer texture compared to SD-samples stored for a shorter period (12 days) and D-samples stored for 126 days. Variations in nutritional compounds and physico-chemical properties among samples along with increasing levels and diversity of volatile compounds in SD-samples during storage compared to D-126 suggest that a variety of flavor compounds arise from biochemical reactions involving lipids, proteins and carbohydrates. These reactions are either endogenous or the result of the activity of microorganisms naturally present in the seaweed. They are promoted by a higher moisture content than in dried material (20% vs 6%) and long storage times. These results provide a basis which can be applied to control the storage conditions of seaweeds to produce flavor-rich ingredients attractive to Western consumers.

Building and transforming collective agency and collective identity to address Latinx farmworkers’ needs and challenges in rural Vermont

Immigrant farmworkers from Latin America experience multiple challenges in rural Vermont. A large body of literature has shown the benefits that collective agency can represent for migrant farmworkers in the U.S. food system. These initiatives have mainly focused on the improvement of human and labor conditions by empowering farmworkers. However, little is known about what factors influence the creation and progress of these types of collaborative efforts to address challenges faced by immigrant farmworkers in rural areas. By analyzing work completed by the non-governmental organization, Migrant Justice in Vermont, this article explores why and how collective agency was formed outside the state power to facilitate resources for Latinx farmworkers on dairy farms. Collaborative work led by this non-governmental organization has resulted in multiple efforts and achievements that address immigrant farmworkers’ needs and challenges. Results from this research unveil the complicated role of the state and how specific aspects of collective identity influenced the formation and progress of collective agency. This study aims to enrich the existing literature and/or ongoing initiatives on food movements, food justice, fair food programs, and immigration in the U.S.

Equity, Environmentalism, and Conscious Consumerism: A Review of Grocery Activism

First paragraph: Two crises pervading the current consciousness of society—the COVID-19 health crisis and the ongoing crisis of police brutality against Black Americans as evident in the recent murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis—make Craig B. Upright’s Grocery Activism: The Radical History of Food Cooperatives in Minnesota particularly timely and relevant, though neither is the direct topic of the book. Upright outlines how grocery co-ops were able to find, sustain, and promote a niche in the market through a symbiotic relationship with the natural and organic foods movement. Readers encounter a variety of voices from Minnesota’s rich history of food co-ops, and while some voices are notably missing, the book provides a foothold into exploring the broad environmental, social, and eco­nomic implications of the aphorism Upright notes in the text: “Food is power. . . .

Know Your Indoor Farmer: Square Roots, Techno-Local Food, and Transparency as Publicity

Advocates of indoor vertical farming have pitched the enterprise as key to the future of food, an opportunity to use technological innovation to increase local food production, bolster urban sustainability, and create a world in which there is “real food” for everyone. At the same time, critics have raised concerns about the costs, energy usage, social impacts, and overall agricultural viability of these efforts, with some insisting that existing low-tech and community-based solutions of the “good food movement” offer a better path forward. Drawing from a mix of participant observation and other qualitative methods, this article examines the work of Square Roots, a Brooklyn-based indoor vertical farming company cofounded by entrepreneur Kimbal Musk and technology CEO Tobias Peggs. In an effort to create a market for what I refer to as “techno-local food,” Square Roots pitches its products as simultaneously “real” and technologically optimized. As a way to build trust in these novel products and better connect consumers with producers, Square Roots leans on transparency as a publicity tool. The company’s Transparency Timeline, for instance, uses photos and a narrative account of a product’s life-cycle to tell its story “from seed-to-store,” allowing potential customers to “know their farmer.” The information Square Roots shares, however, offers a narrow peek into its operations, limiting the view of operational dynamics that could help determine whether the company is actually living up to its promise. The research provides a clear case study of an organization using transparency–publicity as market strategy, illustrating the positive possibilities that such an approach can bring to consumer engagement, while also demonstrating how the tactic can distract from a company’s stated social responsibility goals.

Impact of Slow Food on Modern Tourism Trend in Italy With a Special Focus on 'Florence'

In the present world, food and its related activities are playing a vital role in the modern tourism as most of the people are focusing on sustainable or organic food products. This thesis investigates the effects or the impacts of Slow Food on modern tourism of Italy with a special focus on Florence. Carlo Petrini started slow food movement in Italy in 1986 for two reasons, which happened in that year. Firstly, the scandal of “wine adulterated with methanol” and secondly, the opening of a branch of McDonald's in Piazza di Spagna, in the heart of Rome. Therefore, Italy is considered as the home for Slow Food.

HOW does veganism contribute to shape sustainable food systems? Practices, meanings and identities of vegan restaurants in Porto Alegre, Brazil

Abstract This article discusses if and how the practices of vegan restaurants and their consumers converge towards the construction of sustainable food systems. Analysis is supported by concepts issue from Practice Theory and is based on data collected between October 2018 and April 2019 with owners, chefs, nutritionists, managers, and consumers of vegan restaurants in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The research identified and classified three arrangements of practices: production-consumption reconnection, food and nutritional security, and political engagement. Results highlight that, despite a weak engagement with vegan and other food movements, vegan restaurants (and their consumers) develop several practices that contribute to shape more sustainable models of food production, distribution, and consumption.

Counting the food miles of sugar in early colonial Australia

Food miles is a concept developed in the 1990s as a critique of the negative social and environmental consequences of transporting foods over very long distances. While intended to draw attention to a contemporary problem, the movement of food has a long history to which the concept of food miles can be usefully applied. Drawing upon government correspondence, statistics and personal journals, this article investigates the significance of food miles in establishing the colony of New South Wales, Australia, between 1788 and 1800, with a particular emphasis on sugar. While the some of the issues noted at the end of the twentieth century were present, other factors, such as the high costs of transport, associated waste, and food security were of greater concern to those provisioning the colony and led them to seek to reduce food miles by purchasing supplies in the region. However, other priorities, including preferences for familiar foods and for restricting trade to within the British Empire, created a countervailing pressure which kept food miles very high throughout the period under consideration. This study shows that long before the terminology was coined, food miles played a role in decision making around food supplies and invites the application of the concept to other historical periods.

Mapping movements: a call for qualitative social network analysis

Social network analysis (SNA) is an interdisciplinary method that takes as its starting point the premise that social life is created primarily and most importantly by relations and the patterns formed by these relations. While SNA is often associated with the quantitative analysis of network measures, we illustrate through our overall mapping of, and interpretation of the relations within the Denver food movement, the advantages of a qualitative approach. We bring together information from surveys, network diagrams, betweenness centrality measures, and interviews to offer an interpretive process that reveals both the structure and activist- and organization-level meanings to explain resource mobilization and collaboration. We propose that qualitative SNA allows researchers to (a) understand the context and content of network structures and (b) better interpret quantitative measures with additional qualitative data. Based on our findings, we additionally suggest that for social movement scholars, qualitative SNA offers a deeper understanding of how organizations collaborate to advance organizational and movement goals.

World grain market: place and role of Ukraine

Introduction. The article shows the increase in Ukraine's share in the world structure of grain exports. The average value of the growth rate of Ukrainian wheat and fodder grain exports is calculated, which is ahead of the similar world indicator. It turns out that the food supply of individual countries and regions depends on the volume of Ukrainian grain exports. It is noted that the positive side of the growth of grain exports is the increase in foreign exchange earnings, the negative - the loss of value added and reducing the use of grain for domestic needs. Purpose. Substantiation of theoretical and methodological provisions of the grain market, study of the state, patterns, prospects of the grain market of national and regional nature and development of practical recommendations for improving the organizational and economic mechanism of its regulation through generalization of conceptual approaches and implementation of foreign experience. Results. The article proves that the solution of the global food problem is connected with the production of grain products. Currently, the essence of this problem comes down to the fact that the growth rate of the world's population is ahead of the growth rate of grain production. In addition, the article substantiates how the negative impact of destructive factors on agricultural production is increasing - reducing the area of land suitable for agricultural production through construction and desertification, increasing freshwater shortages, increasing the frequency of floods, droughts and fires and increasing their distribution and more. Conclusions. While maintaining the current demographic and climate trends, the risks of food danger are increasing even for countries that have traditionally been and are suppliers of grain products to the world market. For Ukraine, such risks are because the deepening integration of its economy into the world weakens the ability of public administration to influence the redistribution and movement of food in the national market - free trade policy is the basis of the neoliberal doctrine of economic globalization. In the worst-case scenario, the owners of grain products grown in Ukraine will be foreign agricultural holdings of TNCs, which will export it abroad without restrictions provoking an acute shortage of food in the domestic market with all the negative consequences. Keywords: wheat, fodder grain, export, foreign exchange earnings, raw materials, value added, domestic use.

Loss of control of the culturable bacteria in the hindgut of Bombyx mori after Cry1Ab ingestion

Bt protein, produced by Bacillus thuringiensis, can bind receptors to destroy the physiological functions of the insect midgut. It is unknown whether Bt can also target the hindgut and influence its defense against fecal bacteria. Here we show that Crystal protein 1Ab (Cry1Ab), a Bt protein, was detected in the larval hindgut contents of Bombyx mori after ingestion of this toxin protein. The number of fecal bacteria that can be inhibited by the hindgut prophenoloxidase-induced melanization was significantly enhanced after oral ingestion of Cry1Ab. Although the hindgut contents became brown, the activity of hindgut phenoloxidase was decreased. LC-MS/MS analysis of the hindgut lumen contents revealed that many new proteins including several proteases were newly secreted. The enhanced secretion of proteases cleaved prophenoloxidase to decrease its activity, including the corresponding activity to inhibit the fecal bacteria. In addition, after ingestion of Cry1Ab, the pylorus (between the midgut and hindgut) could not autonomously contract due to the physical detachment of the acellular cuticle-like membrane from the epidermal cells, which prevented the movement of food from the midgut to the hindgut. Some cells in the cryptonephry of the hindgut became swollen and degraded, possibly due to the presence of Cry1Ab in the hindgut. These findings demonstrate that the inhibition of feces bacteria by the hindgut prophenoloxidase-induced melanization is out of control after Cry1Ab ingestion.

The Future of Smallholder Farming in India: Some Sustainability Considerations

The biodiverse, predominantly crop-livestock mixed-farming in India is key to ensuring resilience to climate change and sustainability of smallholder farming agroecologies. Farmers traditionally grow diverse crops as polyculture, and agriculture is mainly organic/biodynamic with spirituality in food systems deeply ingrained. Job-driven out-migration of rural youths, the family labor force, and globalization of contemporary food choices under corporate industrial agriculture both adversely affect sustainability of traditional farming landscapes and compromise the nutrition and health of rural farming communities. Besides documenting information on general agri-food system policy inputs, our paper presents the results of an exploratory study of four crucial community-level initiatives conducted in four distinct agroecological landscapes of India, aimed at bringing sustainability to traditional farming and food systems. The driving force for fundamental change in agri-food system, and in society, is the question of sustainability. The organic and local food movements are but specific phases of the larger, more fundamental sustainable agri-food movement. While it is very critical to increase farmer livelihood, it is even more important to increase overall rural economy. It was found that four important interventions viz. linking organic agriculture to community-supported agriculture (CSA) initiatives; linking small-holder farming to school meal (MDM) programmes; enhanced market access and value chain development for local agricultural produce; and creation of employment opportunities at community level for rural youths and reducing over-dependence of rural population on agriculture as source of income can make traditional farming more profitable and sustainable. The transition to more sustainable methods of farming by selling the farm produce “locally” helps both consumers and farmers alike and is considered a future strength of smallholder Indian agriculture.

Connecting Small-Scale Producers and Consumers: Exploring the Feasibility of Online Food Hubs in Low-Income Communities

Sustainable agriculture and community food security (CFS) are frameworks commonly used, but often separately, within the broader alternative food movement. Sustainable agriculture is production-centered, with a focus on environmental degradation and family farm viability, whereas CFS shifts research from household-level measures of food security to consider larger geographic areas in terms of equitable healthy food access and social justice. The challenge of both movements continues to be the intersection of these ideals to create a sustainable situation in which the needs of producers and consumers can be met simultaneously. We explored the underlying values of local, small-scale producers and consumers living within an impoverished neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio, a large Midwestern city, as they related to participation in an online food hub. Twenty-one consumers participated in three focus groups, and interviews were conducted with eight producers. Our interest was primarily in whether and how these articulated values fit into sustainable agriculture and CFS frameworks, and if there was any evidence of commonalities or intersections between producers and consumers in the context of these frameworks. We hypothesized that producers would be oriented toward the economic viability of their small-scale operations, while consumers would be oriented toward improved food access that was convenient and affordable. We identified three prominent themes from both the consumers’ and producers’ articulated values. We found that an online food hub appealed to some producers and consumers, but that the barriers identified were more prominent than the benefits, and the desire for the proposed online food hub was not sufficient to pursue moving forward with a full-scale version of an online food hub at the time. Authors' Note re: COVID-19 Our research was conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic. An addendum at the end of the paper provides relevant updates to the research as of late April 2020. See the press release for this article.

The Indian in the Kitchen: Colonialism, Cultural Identity, and Food inAugust: Osage County

Tracy Letts’s August: Osage County uses Native-American culture and food production to examine the sources and symptoms of white middle-class dissipation in twenty-first-century America. Specifically, the economic need and cooking skills of Johnna, the housekeeper, become emblematic of the historical exploitation of Native Americans. Her employers, the Weston family, may praise Johnna’s traditional “American” meals – from biscuits and gravy to apple pie – but these foods merely reflect a nostalgic desire to view the country in cliché terms of bounty, progress, and community. Letts’s portrait of the Westons suggests the opposite. Like this broken family, America is buckling under economic inequity, racism, and the environmental harm caused by modern food production. Its history of injustices also exposes the country’s profound moral failure to care for others and the planet. Beginning with a discussion of the decolonial food movement, this article examines Letts’s use of food – particularly the tensions between home cooking and processed foods, between vegetarianism and meat-eating – to explore the legacy of Native-American genocide and to critique culinary injustice as emblematic of the forces that continue to exploit non-whites and the environment.

Participatory Food Cities: Scholar Activism and the Co-Production of Food Knowledge

UK food policy assemblages link a broad range of actors in place-based contexts, working to address increasingly distanciated food supply chains, issues of food justice and more. Academic interest in social movements, such as Sustainable Food Cities, has in recent years taken a participatory turn, with academics seeking to foreground the voices of community-based actors and to work alongside them as part of the movement. Bringing together literatures on multiscalar food governance and participatory methods, this paper investigates the intersection of food policy networks via a place-based case study focused on the co-convening of a community acting to co-produce knowledge of household food insecurity in a UK city. By taking a scholar activist approach, this paper sets out how a place-based cross-sectoral food community mobilised collective knowledge and brought together a community of practice to tackle urgent issues of food justice. Drawing from Borras 2016, it will explore how scholar activism requires the blurring of boundaries between thinking and doing in order to both act with, and reflect on, the food movement. The issues of actively driving forward a food network, along with the tensions and challenges that arise, are investigated, whilst also foregrounding the role academics have in linking food policy and praxis via place-based food communities.

The Economic Pamphleteer: Local Food: Another Food Fad or Food of the Future?

First paragraph: When anticipating the future, many experts simply examine trends of the past and project them into the future—as if trends continue indefinitely. However, one of the most fundamental principles of science is that everything on earth tends to cycle—whether physically, ecologically, economically, or socially (Culotta, 1991; Pool, 1991). All trends eventually stall out and reverse direction. Some apparent aberrations or blips in trends turn out to be harbingers of impending reversals. Some see the reemergence of farmers markets and popularity of locally grown foods as a passing fad or a blip in a continuing trend toward the globalization of the food system. Others see the local food movement as a harbinger of fundamental change. . . .