The Social Organization of Food Activities and Nutritional Status

Abstract

Insight into the effectiveness and interconnectedness of food production, acquisition, processing, preparation, and consumption activities requires an understanding of social organizations. These include organizations such as families, farms, commodity associations, restaurants, food companies, transnational conglomerates that own and control food companies, voluntary organizations that aid the hungry and those with eating disorders, universities where food and nutrition research takes place, and the state that sets agricultural and food policies (see Chapter 9). A second reason for a focus on social organizations such as these is because forces of rationality, commodification, and concentration occur not in individuals but rather in groups. These forces have a significant and increasing impact on agriculture, the kinds of foods available to people, and eating habits. More significantly, these force have collided with social institutions that serve as cultural icons in many Western societies: the family and the family farm. The latter are thought by some to be the last outposts of those expressive relationships considered necessary for both individual well-being and for social order itself.