Food Movement Research Articles

Sustainable food, ethical consumption and responsible innovation: insights from the slow food and “low carbon food” movements in Taiwan

ABSTRACTThis paper examines two food initiatives in Taiwan that address broad social concerns that have informed changes in activists’ perceptions of food citizenship in relation to globalization. Drawing on participant observation and in-depth interviews with stakeholders in two food movements, this ethnographic study contextualizes the motivations and meaning of “local” from the perspectives of social activists and food businesses in Taiwan. It investigates the strategies by which stakeholders engage consumers with the concept of local food as well as the limitations of that engagement, situating the concept of “local food” within sustainable consumption and local traditions. The findings illuminate how activists leverage global discourses on food movements and adapt them to local settings, blending with the vernaculars of local beliefs and traditional values. The study also discusses the potential and limits of this strategy and the use of new media technology in local food activism.

Oily Fish and Omega-3s Across the Life Stages: A Focus on Intakes and Future Directions.

Background: There is a tendency to report oily fish intakes for adults collectively. This means that certain population groups tend to be overlooked. The purpose of the present article is to derive and evaluate oily fish and omega-3 intakes across the lifespan.Methods: A secondary analysis of the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey (years 2008–2016) was undertaken. Data from n = 2,949 participants ≥4 years was analyzed. Alongside this, data was extracted from surveys published within the last 5-years reporting omega-3 intakes.Results: Overall, only a quarter (25.2%) of the UK population are oily fish consumers. Amongst those eating oily fish only 7.3% of children, 12.8% of teenagers, and 15.6% of young adults (20–29 years) met oily fish recommendations. Mean intakes of oily fish ranged between 3.4 and 19.1 g/day. Females aged 30–39 and 60–69 years had significantly lower daily oily fish intakes than males (P = 0.05 and P = 0.049) although their intakes were higher than men in their fifties (P = 0.048). Between 2008 and 2016 oily fish intakes have remained relatively stable although a significant decline was seen amongst those aged 50–59 years (P = 0.048). Survey data (n = 10 publications) showed that EPA and DHA intakes were consistently lower than guidelines, with children, teenagers, females, and pregnant women having some of the largest dietary gaps.Conclusions: Younger generations, women of childbearing age and pregnant mothers appear to be at particular risk of oily fish and omega-3 shortfalls. Declining EPA and DHA profiles of farmed fish and plant-based food movements are only likely to exacerbate already inadequate intakes. Urgent public health campaigns are needed to improve UK intakes, which should include a combined approach of dietary and supplemental sources.

Price premium or price discount for locally produced food products? A temporal analysis for Hawaii

The local food movement in Hawaii has been gaining traction in recent years. However, it is unclear whether consumers’ preference for locally produced food items translates to a higher price, compared to imported alternatives, over time. According to short-term (eg single-year) scanner data, the results of hedonic pricing studies on the existence and level of local food price premiums or discounts across products are mixed. It appears that premiums or discounts for locally produced food products can vary considerably. To detect the temporal changes, if any, in these local price premiums or discounts, this study uses yearly time-series scanner data pertaining to four food products—lettuce, tomatoes, milk and eggs—to estimate the hedonic price model. We conclude that there are temporal changes in local price premiums for locally produced products in Hawaii. However, the temporal changes vary across food types.

The concept of formation of agricultural food systems in the border regions on the principles of network-centric structures

The theoretical and practical approaches to the organization of the territorial economy in agricultural regions on network-centric principles are considered in this paper. Their effectiveness has been proven within the sinter theory in the conditions of market economy and planned economy. The effectiveness of horizontal linkages in clusters of commercial complex provides the opportunity to conduct economic activities, mutually beneficial, efficient use of resources usage cross-border territories. Exploring the resource potential of Large regions of Altai enabled us to identify opportunities to significantly increase the production of the ecologically clean certified meat and dairy livestock products with special properties and contains useful microelements, vitamins, competitive not only in the domestic but also in global markets. This is due to the problem of ensuring healthy nutrition as well as recruiting in world popularity, slow food movement, based on the principle of ecological compatibility of natural products consumed. Thus, the eco-production is able to become a “growth pole” for the rural territories.

Building London’s Food Democracy: Assessing the Contributions of Urban Agriculture to Local Food Decision-Making

This article presents the contributions of Urban Agriculture practitioners in establishing the local food movement and the foundations of an active food democracy in London. It argues that food democracy is emerging from a set of contestations within institutional channels, but also through the historical struggle of formulating the dominating political discourses, both of which are co-constituted through specific social and political practices. Webster and Engberg-Pedersen’s political space framework (2002) breaks up this article in order to describe: 1) How specific institutional channels form different strategies of collaboration and contestation; 2) how these are reflected in political discourses evolution; and 3) what dilemmas and opportunities this evolution in practice entails in relation to responsibilisation and its influence on the possibility of establishing true active food democracy in London.

1311 Acute Pancreatitis in a Patient Using Liraglutide for Weight Loss

INTRODUCTION: Liraglutide is a GLP -1 agonist, a class of type two diabetes mellitus injectable treatments, which has shown benefits of controlling blood glucose levels with a minimal risk of hypoglycemia. Liraglutide delays the movement of food from the stomach into the small intestine which causes early satiety and a decrease in appetite. CASE DESCRIPTION/METHODS: A 40-year-old female presented to the emergency department with a two-day history of acute onset of sharp epigastric pain radiating to the back associated with nausea. The lipase level was elevated at 1,595 U/L and triglycerides were normal. Upon further evaluation, right upper quadrant ultrasound revealed cholelithiasis. CT abdomen and pelvis revealed cholelithiasis without evidence of cholecystitis. Magnetic Resonance Cholangiopancreatography (MRCP) showed gallstones and mild gallbladder wall thickening. There were no signs of pancreatic ductal dilatation or mass lesions. The patient's medical history was significant for obesity, hypertension and asthma. Liraglutide injections were started four weeks prior to her presentation for weight loss. She denied any history of pancreatic disease, alcohol use, tobacco use or herbal supplementations. The patient medications were significant for lisinopril and pantoprazole. DISCUSSION: In 2014 liiraglutide has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for weight loss at a higher dose. In the phase III trials Liraglutide Effect and Action in Diabetes (LEAD), liraglutide was shown to have a substantial decrease not only in hemoglobin A1C over a placebo, but in weight reduction as well. Since its use for weight loss, there have been concerns for acute pancreatitis. Acute pancreatitis is an inflammatory disease of the pancreas. Etiologies most commonly include gallstones or alcohol use. In cases where there is no history of alcohol use or obstructive gallstone disease it is imperative to search for alternative causes. In the case we presented, the patient underwent MRCP which did not reveal signs of pancreatic ductal obstructions. A careful review of her medical history and medications did not provide any risk factors for developing pancreatitis except for liraglutide injections for weight loss. The possibility of autoimmune or viral acute pancreatitis was ruled out. Liraglutide has been reported to cause acute pancreatitis. It has been suggested that it is more common to develop acute pancreatitis while on liraglutide in patients who have a history of pancreatitis or gall bladder disease.

Children and the Modern Farming Movement

In the twenty‐first century, a small percentage of U.S. children have ties to family‐based agriculture. Yet with the rise of the modern farming movement that emphasizes local and family‐based production, new spaces may exist for involving children and youth in farming. This article focuses on the social value of children to family‐based agriculture in the contemporary era. Drawing on a qualitative study of families that farm in the capital region of New York—an epicenter for the modern food movement—we consider why families farm, how they involve children in their farms, and how they understand children's contributions. Interviews with 76 adult members of 50 families show children to be central to families' goals; they often rationalize farming as a lifestyle choice undertaken for the benefit of their children. Families also actively involve their own children—and other people's children—in their farms. By documenting the way families talk about children and farming, we shed light on the logic used to incorporate children into modern productive enterprises. The centrality of children, we argue, helps explain the success of the modern food movement and the persistence of family‐based agriculture despite conditions that make it economically difficult to accomplish.

Anxiety of food nationalism: Dilemmas of bordering in the Vietnam–Taiwan tea trade

In Taiwan, bentu (or bendi) is a term emphasizing local food and agriculture, similar to “localness” in the concept of local food systems (LFS). The term also demonstrates the complex, inseparable relationship between local food movements and food nationalism in Taiwan. This paper examines the politics of bentu in Taiwan's food movements in order to reconsider the relationship between the relocalization of agri‐food systems and the politics of bordering regarding food nationalism. This approach chimes with recent scholarship concerned with relocating border studies, in political geography in particular, and provides a way of critically understanding the borderwork that takes place beyond the national borders. We use the case of the tea trade between Vietnam and Taiwan to illustrate how borders around bentu food products can be simultaneously porous and fixed. During the 1990s Taiwanese entrepreneurs and tea merchants established tea plantations and factories in Vietnam to meet increasing Taiwanese market demand. However, Vietnamese tea has been stigmatized as inferior due to concerns about pesticide residue and quality control. Yet while bentu protectionists of Taiwanese tea have drawn and re‐drawn the symbolic and spatial borders to constrain the mobility of Vietnamese tea, tea producers in Vietnam have practised a variety of strategies to re‐mobilize their tea to cross spatial and symbolic borders into Taiwan. Thus, we argue, the “movement” of bentu food encompasses two dimensions: a social movement to fix the boundaries of local tea for food nationalism, and movement as the discrepant patterns of mobility of both humans and non‐humans – tea producers and tea trees in our case – that can challenge attempts to shore up a purified vision of the bentu. As such, bentu has been a mechanism for the construction of a symbolically distinct but spatially blurred space for Taiwanese tea.

Immigrant farmers, sustainable practices: growing ecological and racial diversity in alternative agrifood spaces

ABSTRACT This paper looks closely at Latino/a immigrant farming practices, arguing that although many immigrant farmers use practices that are deemed sustainable or ecological by alternative food movement standards, alternative food institutions have not yet recognized immigrant farmers’ increasing contribution to the agroecological knowledge base on U.S. farms. We draw on qualitative and quantitative research, including over one hundred interviews with farmers and organizational staff, comparing five case sites in Virginia, New York, California, Minnesota, and Washington as well as national statistical data from the U.S. Census of Agriculture. Specific practices of Latino/a growers include growing biodiverse fruit and vegetable crops on a small scale, direct sales at farmers’ markets, and maintaining family-based labor. Although they use little or no synthetic inputs, many are not certified organic, and are not tied in to high-end markets, and therefore do not receive the organic premium. This paper argues for a deeper look into who is included and excluded from alternative farming institutions and spaces and makes a case for the importance of creating new opportunities for immigrant farmers of color as part of these social networks and markets.

Does urbanization make emergence of zoonosis more likely? Evidence, myths and gaps.

Rapid urbanization in the global South is adding epidemiological and nutritional challenges and increasing disease and health burdens for citizens. Greater movement of people, animals, food and trade often provides favourable grounds for the emergence of infectious diseases, including zoonoses. We conduct a rapid evidence scan to explore what is known and hypothesized about the links between urbanization and zoonosis emergence. This points to rapid demographic growth, migration and density, increased movement of people and animals, and changes in land uses as the main processes linked to the prevalence of zoonosis in the urban global South. We argue that this emerging global health challenge is also deeply connected with the urbanization of poverty and inequalities within cities. Tackling the micro-level causal relationships between urbanization and zoonosis requires urgent attention to living conditions, as well as the wider socioenvironmental transitions and structural drivers that produce and reproduce risk accumulation in urban settings.

Race, privilege and the exclusivity of farm internships: Ecological agricultural education and the implications for food movements

Internships have become a prominent way of training new ecological farmers across North America. This paper interrogates the social identities of these interns asking: Who is being trained as the next generation of ecological farmers and what are the implications for food movements more broadly? Our research reveals a series of privileges associated with the ability to work for little or no remuneration and to access rural spaces where most internships are located. We argue that, while providing valuable knowledge and skills, the dominant model of ecological farm internships privileges white, middle-class young people and creates barriers to entry for racialized people, thereby limiting access to the subsequent education, training and other privileges awarded as part of the experience. In addition, this model hinders opportunities for building a more diverse ecological farming sector by reproducing a particular kind of farmer, limiting the impact of food movements.

Lana Del Rey’s American Grotesque

ABSTRACTLana Del Rey's success and popularity provoke questions about her authenticity. The cultural heteroglossia she presents in her work often includes striking contrasts in how she satirizes religion, romanticizes Lolita, romanticizes Americana, strives for a meaningless freedom, and in how she presents the aesthetic and physical. For a pop musician, Lana Del Rey compels unexpected and sustained serious analysis. She and her work fit within the artistic and literary traditions of the grotesque in a way that is particularly American. Her American grotesque also emerges from the anomie and whimsy that characterize the hipster, millennial, and slow food movements.

The Citizen, the Baker, and the Candlestick Maker: What Democrats Can Learn from the Arts and Crafts and Slow Food Movements

In many ways, the contemporary Slow Food movement is the heir to the early twentieth-century Arts and Crafts movement. Both movements believe that democratic societies should restructure their economic systems so as to ensure that workers and consumers are able to experience pleasure. In this article, I examine how prominent advocates of artisanal crafts understand the relationship between democracy, economics, and pleasure. Drawing on the ideas of William Morris, Ellen Gates Starr, Carlo Petrini, Wendell Berry, and Barbara Kingsolver, I argue that democracy societies should encourage joyful labor and ensure universal access to material objects that enrich daily life. I also, however, conclude that democrats who are inspired by the Arts and Crafts and slow food movements must make more of an effort to ensure that their understanding of pleasure is inclusive.

Making Place for Local Food: Reflections on Institutional Procurement and the Alberta Flavour Learning Lab

Part case study, part reflective essay, this paper examines questions of place and scale in relation­ship to local food initiatives and, in particular, institutional procurement. A recent emphasis on “place-based” rather than “local” food systems presents an opportunity to ask, What would local food look like here? The Canadian province of Alberta is a unique place defined by a set of geographical, historical, and cultural relationships and connections around food. Through the case of the Alberta Flavour Learning Lab (Alberta Flavour), an institutional procurement initiative focused on “scaling-up” local food, we discuss how an increased emphasis on context and place acti­vates strategic directions for thinking about food system change. We consider Alberta Flavour as a site of strategic localism that involves actively craft­ing a scale of local food that functions within a particular context. Rather than reinforcing divides between conventional and alternative food systems, Alberta Flavour interfaces between the broader values of the local food movement and the current realities of Alberta’s agri-food landscape and cul­ture. We argue that the initiative’s hybrid and prag­matic approach to “getting more local food on more local plates,” while not radical, nonetheless contributes to positive food system change through “transformative incrementalism” (Buchan, Cloutier, & Friedman, in press).

The Significance of Short Food Supply Chains: Trends and Bottlenecks from the SKIN Thematic Network

Short Food Supply Chains (SFSCs) are central to the alternative food movement discourse. SFSCs are based upon the interrelations among actors who are directly involved in the production, processing, distribution, and consumption of food products. They depend upon actors mobilising resources of various kinds: skills; knowledge; labour; capital; buildings etc. External factors such as policies and regulations can also encourage the creation of these shorter chains. The development of SFSCs can still be hindered by a range of other factors. Nevertheless, bottlenecks can be overcome via the sharing of information on successful SFSCs through the dissemination of Good Practices between various actors and territories. The Short Supply Chain Knowledge and Innovation (SKIN) project uses the term ‘good’ rather than ‘best’ practice to draw attention to the subjective lens through which a practice is ultimately evaluated by an end-user. This paper first outlines the many issues that confront SFSC actors which represent bottlenecks to the adoption of ‘Good Practices’. It then documents the Good Practices collected as part of the SKIN project as tangible examples of how SFSCs overcome such challenges. Lessons learnt from project highlights are subsequently assessed in an effort to mitigate and offer solutions to the challenges associated with SFSCs. The paper demonstrates the considerable latent potential inherent to SFSCs. However, in order for the agricultural sector to realise the full promise of short supply chains it must first be conscious of the issues pertinent to their prosperity.

A Land-Based and Spatial Assessment of Local Food Capacity in Northern Idaho, USA

Across the United States, there has been a growing interest in local food production, which provides an alternative way to increase self-sufficiency and support greater well-being and food security at the community level. This study focused on the Northern Panhandle region of Idaho, where opportunities derived from the local food movement have emerged in several resort and college towns. This research integrated spatial analysis and modeling in a geographic information system (GIS) environment and a linear-programming (LP) optimization approach to identify, quantify, and map these potential opportunities. The obtained results show that existing local food producers are located in the urban fringe and on productive cropland. The foodshed model further suggests that Northern Idaho has enough farmland to feed its whole population within an average distance of 49 km or 31 miles. An alternative land use scenario was explored that involves removing marginal cropland with high soil erodibility from commodity cropping to improve the ecological benefits of local food production. The results of the study, including nuanced evidence of growing demand for local-food products, the existence of enough cropland capacity to meet demand, and potential environmental benefits, are quite encouraging to local food advocates in Northern Idaho and other areas and demonstrate the utility of land-based foodshed analysis.

AYURVEDIC CONCEPT OF KOSHTHA AND ITS IMPORTANCE IN PANCHKARMA

Ayurveda is the science of life. Panchakarma procedure comes under the shodhana chikitsa. Shodhanaa chikitsa is better than shamanaa chikitsa, because disease treated with shodhana therapy will never reoccur. Koshtha, Agni, bala are the assessment factor in Panchakarma. The term koshtha can be described in two ways. koshtha is nature of digestive tract or hollow parts of body which represents motility of the intestines and movement of food and fecal matter in the alimentary canal and elimination of stool. koshtha shodan is most important procedure in Panchakarma. Assessment of Koshtha is very important for Panchakarma therapy as Dosage of Shodhana drugs are dependent upon type of Koshtha. If Koshtha Assessment does not properly done then Samyak shodhan does not occur.

Subverting the new narrative: food, gentrification and resistance in Oakland, California

Alternative food movements work to create more environmentally and economically sustainable food systems, but vary widely in their advocacy for social, racial and environmental justice. However, even those food justice activists explicitly dedicated to equity must respond to the unintended consequences of their work. This paper analyzes the work of activists in Oakland, CA, who have increasingly realized that their gardens, health food stores and farm-to-table restaurants play a role in what scholars have called green gentrification, the upscaling of neighborhoods through the creation of environmental amenities. Gentrification has had grave consequences for the low-income communities of color that food justice activists seek to serve. Activists are reflexive about this dynamic, and have developed strategies to push back against displacement. Most commonly, non-profit organizations and individual social entrepreneurs found businesses that seek to raise the profile of people of color in the trendy Oakland food scene while employing long-term residents in well-paying, green jobs. However, while these efforts are an essential component of a broader agenda to create both food justice and development without displacement, even these relatively high paying (when compared to the industry standard) “good food jobs” cannot keep up with escalating rents. For this reason, we also highlight the direct action and policy-oriented strategies engaged by a smaller number of food justice activists, and argue that these are necessary compliments to a market-based approach.

"Alone in a Sea of Rib-Tips": Alvenia Fulton, Natural Health, and the Politics of Soul Food1.

While the intersection between alternative medicine and the natural food movement in radical white communities of the 1960s and 1970s is well known, the connection between these traditions and the simultaneous revolution in the black foodscape has not received adequate attention. This paper addresses this gap by exploring how an alternative healer and minister from the rural South, Alvenia Fulton, rose to prominence in Chicago during the 1960s and 1970s as one of the major figures in the transformation of the black diet by harnessing the star power of her celebrity clients. Fulton hybridized her apprenticeship in slave herbalism with concepts from white Protestant health food lectures into a corrective nutrition program to bring health and renewal to black communities that were struggling under the burden of structural and medical racism. When, in the 1960s, coronary heart disease peaked for black Americans, soul food became the iconic diet of the civil rights movement. To help her community while respecting their culture, Fulton struck a careful bargain to encourage more black Americans to eat raw, natural, vegetarian food by subtly reimagining the historical contents of the slave diet.

Peru on a Plate: coloniality and modernity in Peru’s high-end cuisine

As global dining culture turns increasingly homogeneous, there is a parallel interest in reconnecting with locality. Two global food movements codify this return to the local: the Slow Food and New Nordic Cuisine movements, both European in origin. I explore the characteristically modernist global-local ambivalence in the work of Virgilio Martinez, Peru’s most highly awarded chef, whose project of bringing together a culturally rooted Peruvian cuisine appears closely aligned to the New Nordic Cuisine movement. Drawing on a decolonial framework, I argue that Martinez’s desire to connect with Peru’s ancestral cultural roots, not uncommon amongst upper-class Peruvian chefs, is hindered by an epistemic divide dating back to colonial times. Further vestiges of colonial history are also present in Martinez’s taxonomic search for new ingredients and the visual focus of his aesthetic, both reminiscent of the Spanish botanical expeditions of the late 18th century. Martinez’s latest project, Mil Centro, a restaurant and research centre located in an Inca archaeological site, offers new possibilities. The participatory involvement of neighbouring Quechua-speaking communities could signal new openings.