Anxious appetites [electronic resource] : food and consumer culture / by Peter Jackson.

ISBN:

9781474255240

Title:

Author:

Jackson, Peter, 1955-

Personal Author:

Jackson, Peter, 1955-

Publication Information:

London ; New York : Bloomsbury Pub., 2015.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 222 p.)

Contents:

The roots of contemporary food anxieties -- Mapping contemporary food anxieties -- Anxiety as a social condition -- Technological change and consumer anxieties about food -- Food scares and the regulation of supply chains -- Mediating science and nature: parental anxieties about food -- Celebrity chefs and the circulation of food anxieties -- Consumer anxieties and domestic food practices -- Rethinking convenience and food waste -- The routes of contemporary food anxieties.

Subject Term:

Food habits -- Social aspects.

Food -- Quality -- Social aspects.

Food contamination -- Social aspects.

Consumers.

Anxiety -- Social aspects.

Format:

Electronic Resources

Electronic Access:

Click here to view

Publication Date:

2015

Publication Information:

London ; New York : Bloomsbury Pub., 2015.

Available:*

Shelf Number	Material Type	Copy	Shelf Location	Status
394.12 23	1:E-BOOK	1	1:ONLINE	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Despite government claims that food is safer and more readily available today than ever before, recent survey evidence demonstrates high levels of food-related anxiety among Western consumers. While chronic hunger and malnutrition are relatively rare in the West, food scares relating to individual products, concerns about global food security and other expressions of consumer anxiety about food remain widespread. Anxious Appetites explores the causes of these present-day anxieties. Looking at fears over provenance and regulation in a world of lengthening supply chains and greater concentration of corporate power, Peter Jackson investigates how anxieties about food circulate and how they act as a channel for broader social issues. Drawing on case studies such as the 2013 horsemeat scandal and fears about the contamination of infant formula in China in 2008, he examines how and why these concerns emerge. Comparing survey results with ethnographic observation of consumer practice, he explores the gap between official advice about food safety and people's everyday experience of food, including a critique of ideological notions of 'consumer choice'. A captivating, timely book which presents a new theory of social anxiety.

Author Notes

Peter Jackson is Professor of Human Geography at the University of Sheffield, UK.

Reviews (1)

Choice Review

Jackson (human geography, Univ. of Sheffield) has assembled essays on key issues relating to food and public attitudes, mostly in the UK. He uses the concept of anxiety to link technological, regulatory, economic, and cultural issues in chapters ranging from celebrity chefs to the marketing of chicken. One exceptional chapter examines the damage done to consumer confidence in China by the infant food and melamine poisoning episode and the response from the food industry. Research methods include ethnographic participant observation, interviews, focus groups, and surveys, much of it done by Jackson's collaborators in a larger research program. Chapter 8 is particularly important in comparing stated food preferences of the kind typical in surveys with actual behavior, finding great difference between the two. In sum, the book depicts people justifiably anxious about food safety who distrust both government and industry solutions but are unsure of how to respond. Many chapters would be very useful readings in undergraduate classes on contemporary food, but as a whole, the book might be too diverse for many readers. Summing Up: Recommended. All academic levels/libraries. --Richard R. Wilk, Indiana University