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The socio-cultural context of eating and food choice

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Food Choice, Acceptance and Consumption

Abstract

For convenience, we can assume that the 5 billion people in the world eat an average of 3 meals a day, or 15 billion meals in total. It is virtually certain (though no one has counted) that the great majority of these meals are eaten with someone else. Let us generously estimate that 25% of all meals are taken alone. This may be literally true, but virtually none of these meals could have happened without others: the people who raised or hunted or gathered the food, and those who prepared it. And, the particular form of the food eaten is determined by recipes which are social constructions, and social communications, as are the food beliefs and attitudes of the supposedly solitary eater. So the study of the socio-cultural context of eating and food selection is almost the same as the study of eating and food selection.

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Authors
  1. Paul Rozin
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Development and Engineering Center, US Army Natick Research, 01760-5020, Natick, Massachusetts, USA

    H. L. Meiselman

  2. Consumer Sciences Department, Institute of Food Research, Earley Gate, Whiteknights Road, RG62EF, Reading, UK

    H. J. H. MacFie

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© 1996 Chapman & Hall

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Rozin, P. (1996). The socio-cultural context of eating and food choice. In: Meiselman, H.L., MacFie, H.J.H. (eds) Food Choice, Acceptance and Consumption. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-1221-5_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-1221-5_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-8518-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4613-1221-5

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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