I went to a thought-provoking talk on this subject at the Wellcome Collection (if you've never been, I recommend a visit - it's free, and there are some interesting events too).
As the summary of the event put it: "Our attitudes to food reflect underlying fears about changes in lifestyle, family and society as a whole, and food is a powerful tool for criticising the behaviour of individual consumers, especially when they are responsible for nurturing the next generation."
One member of the audience certainly felt criticised, lambasting one of the speakers as a snob. He felt that food should be about good times, not about ethics and morality, and claimed that worrying about food miles got in the way of the simple enjoyment of breaking bread (or slurping noodles, scoffing sweets or whatever) with friends and family.
I couldn't help but feel that this was over-simplification and something of an abdication of responsibility. Can't we buy food with ethical (or health) considerations in mind, and still enjoy it? To extend his argument, most people drink alcohol for enjoyment, but that doesn't mean we should ignore alcohol-fuelled violence or health ill-effects.
Anne Murcott, Professorial Research Associate at the Food Studies Centre, SOAS, pointed out that our views on food come laden with history and convention. We have certain expectations for our meals. You can't eat what you would normally have for dinner at breakfast-time, and vice-versa, without being thought very odd. Snacks, on the other hand, are much more flexible - a snack might be an apple, a biscuit, or a portion of chips. She suggested that proponents of healthy eating are more likely to succeed in changing people's behaviour if they target snacks (aka unstructured food events) rather than meals (structured food events). It's an interesting thought. I wonder if anyone will take it up?
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