Food Consumption

Humans eat food for a variety of reasons. On the most basic level, food provides the macro- and micronutrients necessary for life. Humans also experience food through a multitude of means, consuming food not only as it is ingested but also in the variety of meanings humans attach to ingredients, meals, cuisines, sharing, celebrations, and even being seen with foods. Humans experience food beyond the meal not only while consuming it but also in the selection of certain products over others in meal planning and preparation. Humans experience foods as both a biological necessity (nutrition) and within a social context through which people ascribe meaning and value to foods as cuisine, as tradition, as identity, for creating and maintaining relationships, through food's preparation, presentation, packaging, cost, and within and throughout its social context. There are a variety of ways of reflecting taste at the individual, group, social, and cultural levels. Meals and the way they are shared both physically and ideologically inform people of who they have been, who they are, and where they might be going.

The meaning of foods, even at the most base level of what constitutes proper food, varies through space and time. Foods that at many times of the year might be considered inferior have historically been readily consumed in times of resource scarcity. Food is not only a matter of individual, household, or community preferences but is also rather intertwined in overlapping and often conflicting values and ideologies. As such, the production, distribution, preparation, and consumption of foods is increasingly legislated and contested in a variety of political and economic contexts. The notion of what is good to eat and what is possible to eat is a product of these processes.