Kitchen, cooking, nutrition, and eating have become omnipresent cultural topics. They stand at the center of design, gastronomy, nutrition science, and agriculture. Artists have appropriated cooking as an aesthetic practice – in turn, cooks are adapting the staging practices that go with an artistic self-image. This development is accompanied by a philosophy of cooking as a speculative cultur…
For decades, NGOs targeting world hunger focused on ensuring that adequate quantities of food were being sent to those in need. In the 1990s, the international food policy community turned its focus to the “hidden hunger” of micronutrient deficiencies, a problem that resulted in two scientific solutions: fortification, the addition of nutrients to processed foods, and biofortification, the …
This open access book approaches the anxieties inherent in food consumption and production in Vietnam. The country’s rapid and recent economic integration into global agro-food systems and consumer markets spurred a new quality of food safety concerns, health issues and distrust in food distribution networks that have become increasingly obscured. This edited volume further puts the eating bo…
This open access book examines India’s economic development, agricultural production, and nutrition through the lens of a “Food Systems Approach (FSA).” Despite economic progress, regional inequality, food insecurity and malnutrition persist. Simultaneously, recent trends in obesity and micro-nutrient deficiency indicate a future public health crisis. This book explores the challenges a…
This open access book approaches the anxieties inherent in food consumption and production in Vietnam. The country’s rapid and recent economic integration into global agro-food systems and consumer markets spurred a new quality of food safety concerns, health issues and distrust in food distribution networks that have become increasingly obscured. This edited volume further puts the eating bo…
This study reviews policy developments in recent years and, in the light of that, explores ways in which further consensus might be reached among WTO members to reduce farm trade distortions — and thereby also progress the multilateral trade reform agenda. Particular attention is given to ways that would boost well-being in developing countries, especially for those food-insecure households s…
The information and risk society poses a new challenge for the law in all its fragments. Modern media communication and technologies increase people’s prosperity while stating new risks with not uncommonly devastating crisis-potential: The banking crisis, the safety net for the euro zone and the nuclear incident in Fukushima are only the latest forms of those specific modern common dangers wh…
As population estimates for 2050 reach over 9 billion, issues of food security and nutrition have been dominating academic and policy debates. A total of 805 million people are undernourished worldwide and malnutrition affects nearly every country on the planet. Despite impressive productivity increases, there is growing evidence that conventional agricultural strategies fall short of eliminati…
Food price volatility is one of the major challenges facing the global agricultural system today. This was most vividly illustrated during the global food crisis of 2007–9 when price spikes occurred for key staple food commodities—such as wheat, rice, maize, and soybeans. Given the variety of reactions by governments of countries experiencing similar food price shocks, the 2007–9 crisis o…
The idea of origin in terms of space and culture as a special indicator of quality is one of the most influential strands in contemporary food. It impacts on politics, economics and everyday life – and it connects these fields with complex relations of power and culture. With geographical indications, the EU offers an instrument which allows for the declaration of specialties, qualified by…
Every day in Mumbai 5,000 dabbawalas (literally translated as "those who carry boxes") distribute a staggering 200,000 home-cooked lunchboxes to the city’s workers and students. Giving employment and status to thousands of largely illiterate villagers from Mumbai's hinterland, this co-operative has been in operation since the late nineteenth century. It provides one of the most efficient deli…
Food is fundamental to health and social participation, yet food poverty has increased in the global North. Adopting a realist ontology and taking a comparative case approach, Families and Food in Hard Times addresses the global problem of economic retrenchment and how those most affected are those with the least resources. Based on research carried out with low-income families with children ag…
This open access book discusses the current role of smallholders in connection with food security and poverty reduction in developing countries. It addresses the opportunities they enjoy, and the constraints they face, by analysing the availability, access to and utilization of production factors. Due to the relevance of smallholder farms, enhancing their production capacities and economic and…
This Open Access auto-translation book demonstrates a time series of nutrition improvement in Japan since the introduction of nutrition sciences to Japan about 150 years ago. The chapters present the historical event where nutritional deficiency due to food shortage was improved in almost a century, by the introduction of nutrition policy and practices such as the "Nutrition Improvement Law". T…
This book provides a fresh, updated and science-based perspective on the current status and prospects of the diverse array of topics related to the potato, and was written by distinguished scientists with hands-on global experience in research aspects related to potato. The potato is the third most important global food crop in terms of consumption. Being the only vegetatively propagated specie…
This book examines the connection between food and identity in the Nigerian diaspora community in Belgium. Encounters between people from different cultures do not lead to a simple adaptation of the diet, but usually give rise to some kind of fusion of new and indigenous food habits. The author questions the relationship between what Nigerian migrants in the diaspora eat, their self-perception …
Drawing on the ethnographic experience of the contributors, this volume explores the Cultural Models of Nature found in a range of food-producing communities located in climate-change affected areas. These Cultural Models represent specific organizations of the etic categories underlying the concept of Nature (i.e. plants, animals, the physical environment, the weather, humans, and the supernat…
Tourists are travelling the world in greater numbers than ever before, seeking immersive cultural experiences. This massive rise of tourism has raised issues of social and cultural sustainability in the world’s global cities. At the same time, smaller cities and rural communities struggling with increasing urbanization and the loss of traditional industries could benefit from increased touris…
Tourists are travelling the world in greater numbers than ever before, seeking immersive cultural experiences. This massive rise of tourism has raised issues of social and cultural sustainability in the world’s global cities. At the same time, smaller cities and rural communities struggling with increasing urbanization and the loss of traditional industries could benefit from increased touris…
This open access book brings together varying perspectives for transformational change needed in India’s agriculture and allied sectors. Stressing the need of thinking for a post-Green Revolution future, the book promotes approaching this change through eight broad areas, indicating the policy shifts needed to meet the challenges for the coming decade (2021-2030). The book comprises of ten…
Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. This book explores the history and current practice of food sharing. Illustrated by rich case studies from around the world, the book uses new empirical data to set an agenda for research and action. The book will be an important resource for researchers, policy makers and sharing innovators to explore the impacts and sustainability potential of suc…