Abstract
Given the technological constraints of long-duration space travel and planetary settlement, off-Earth humans will likely need to employ food systems very different from their terrestrial counterparts, and newly emerging food technologies are being developed that will shape novel food systems in these off-Earth contexts. Projected off-Earth food systems may therefore potentially “alienate” their users in new ways compared to Earth-based food systems. They will be susceptible to alienation in ways that are similar to such potential on Earth, where there are points of overlap between off-Earth food systems and any of the multitudes of ways in which food systems on Earth are structured. They will also be susceptible to new forms of alienation, as we encounter scenarios that are genuinely structurally novel to humanity. These are especially important to consider since there are comparatively fewer analyses of these food systems where they differ from existing ones. We propose five non-exhaustive sources of value beyond nutrition our individual relationships with a food may possess: gustatory, social, cultural, epistemic, and authorial value. Using these, we offer examples of ways in which an off-Earth food system may exacerbate or alleviate alienation for humans in long-term off-Earth food systems.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
There is need for a further treatment related to values that takes up ways in which alienation can be more systematic, including institutional structures that mediate access and social structures that shape food preparation and consumption. For reasons of space, we focus here on a specific kind of alienated relationship that an individual may experience, which lays useful groundwork for subsequent development of a more thorough framework that draws in social and institutional values as well as individual ones.
This is a traditional stew made with potatoes and meat, usually beef or a mixture of pork and beef, and other root vegetables such as carrots, onions, and turnips.
For example, one may have personal values of various sorts that shape one’s relationship to food in various ways, such as valuing ethically sourced ingredients, or choosing to be vegetarian or vegan as part of valuing the lives of animals, or even simply choosing to prepare food at home instead of eating out because one values saving that money for a different, higher-valued, purpose. We set these aside here: they are legitimate values that shape food consumption but are more aptly characterized from an institutional perspective in ways that makes the case of off-Earth food systems relevantly different than many on-Earth contexts.
This is a narrower value than that of food sovereignty. “Food sovereignty, broadly defined as the right of nations and peoples to control their own food systems, including their own markets, production modes, food cultures and environments…” (Wittman et al. 2010). Authorial value applies to individuals specifically, rather than to nations or peoples. Authorial value for individuals is a necessary though insufficient condition for food sovereignty.
We wish to thank two anonymous reviewers for pushing us to be clearer on this point.
Could it be that Stella comes to regard the recreated food as comforting and delicious, the same way her parents view the originals? Afterall, Stella has never experienced Earth so whatever the recreations consist in will be ‘normal’ for her and therefore just as good. While this is certainly possible, we think it is unlikely for two reasons. First, at least in the examples cited, the off-Earth food described lags behind its Earthly counterparts in flavor and texture. The fact that it is tied to Earthly nostalgia may somewhat compensate for these deficits, but again, Stella will never experience Earth. Second, Stella has less ability than her parents to adapt or change the recreated food to suit her tastes or situation. We discuss this issue further in the context of diasporic communities below.
There are further ramifications of this, to be explored in a further paper, regarding the potential limitations of terraforming not in terms of engineering and time scales, but in terms of bringing about a potentially overly ‘literal’ replication of Earth-based ecosystems that is not as well-suited to the needs or desires of humans in permanent off-Earth contexts such as Mars (see also Genta 2021).
References
Baker, S. 2021. NASA grew and harvested chili peppers in space, a scientific breakthrough. An astronaut used them for tacos. Insider [Internet]. https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-grew-chili-peppers-in-space-astronaut-used-them-tacos-2021-11 Accessed 18 April, 2023.
Bengson, J. 2013. Knowledge how Vs. Knowledge that. In Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Social Sciences, ed. B. Kaldis. Sage Publications.
Brehaut, L. 2022. What will we eat on Mars?. National Post [Internet]. https://nationalpost.com/entertainment/books/feeding-mars. Accessed 22 February 2023.
Carolan, M. S. 2011. Embodied food politics. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Clayton, J. 2022. SpaceX: Can meat be grown in space? BBC News [Internet]. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-61116018. Accessed 22 February 2023.
Corcoran, M. P. 2021. Beyond ‘food apartheid’: civil society and the politicization of hunger in New Haven, Connecticut. Urban Agriculture & Regional Food Systems, 6(1), e20013.
Dudziak, A., M. Stoma, and A. J. Derkacz. 2022. Circular economy in the context of food losses and Waste. Sustainability 14(16): 10116.
Fraser, E., and L. Newman. 2022. Opinion: A Martian menu that could transform how we eat on Earth. CNN [Internet]. https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/07/opinions/mars-food-agriculture-scn-opinion-hnk-spc-intl/index.html. Accessed 22 February 2023.
Genta, G. 2021. Terraforming and colonizing Mars. In Terraforming Mars 1st. Edn, eds. M., J. Beech, Seckbach, and R. Gordon. 1–22. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Gilabert, P. 2020. Alienation, Freedom, and dignity. Philosophical Topics 48(2): 51–80.
Gripper, A. B., R. Nethery, T. L. Cowger, M. White, I. Kawachi, and G. Adamkiewicz. 2022. Community solutions to food apartheid: a spatial analysis of community food-growing spaces and neighborhood demographics in Philadelphia. vol. 310 115221. Social Science & Medicine.
Halper, M. 2021. NASA examining psychological benefits of growing plants on Space Station. LEDs magazine [Internet]. https://www.ledsmagazine.com/horticultural-lighting/article/14208259/nasa-examining-psychological-benefits-of-growing-plants-on-space-station Accessed 18 April, 2023.
Joyner, L., B. Yagüe, A. Cachelin, and J. Rose. 2022. Farms and gardens everywhere but not a bite to eat? A critical geographic approach to food apartheid in Salt Lake City. Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development 11(2): 67–88.
Leopold, D. 2022. Alienation. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,eds. E.N. Zalta EN, U. Nodelman [Internet]. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University; https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2022/entries/alienation/ Accessed 22 February 2023.
Llorente, B., T. C. Williams, H. D. Goold, I. S. Pretorius, and I. T. Paulsen. 2022. Harnessing bioengineered microbes as a versatile platform for space nutrition. Nature Communications 13(1): 6177.
Marx, K. 2007. Estranged Labour. In Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 [Internet]. New York, United States: Dover Publications, 80–98. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sfu-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1889608 Accessed 22 February 2023.
Meinen, E., T. Dueck, F. Kempkes, and C. Stanghellini. 2018. Growing fresh food on future space missions: environmental conditions and crop management. Sci Horticult 235: 270–278. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scienta.2018.03.002.
Mosby, I., and T. Galloway. 2017. Hunger was never absent: how residential school diets shaped current patterns of diabetes among indigenous peoples in Canada. Cmaj 189(32): E1043–E1045.
NASA. 2021. Press Release: NASA and Announces Winners of Deep Space Food Challenge. NASA. http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-announces-winners-of-deep-space-food-challenge. Accessed 24 September, 2022.
Nelson, D., and N. Silva. 2016. How South Korea Uses Kimchi To Connect To The World — And Beyond. NPR [Internet]. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/08/22/489805398/how-south-korea-uses-kimchi-to-connect-to-the-world-and-beyond. Accessed 22 February 2023.
Newman, L., and E. Fraser. 2022. Dinner on Mars: The Technologies that will feed the Red Planet and transform Agriculture on Earth. ECW Press.
Princen, T. 2002. Consumption and the severing of Feedback. In Confronting consumption, eds. T. Princen, M. Maniates, and K. Conca. 103–132. MIT Press.
Rotz, S., E. Gravely, I. Mosby, E. Duncan, E. Finnis, M. Horgan, …, and E. Fraser. 2019. Automated pastures and the digital divide: how agricultural technologies are shaping labour and rural communities. Journal of Rural Studies 68: 112–122.
Russo, C., A. Maugeri, G. E. Lombardo, L. Musumeci, D. Barreca, and A. Rapisarda et al. 2021. The Second Life of Citrus Fruit Waste: a Valuable source of Bioactive Compounds. Molecules 26(19): 5991.
Sax, D. 2009. Save the Deli: in search of perfect pastrami, crusty rye, and the heart of jewish delicatessen. Boston New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Shaw, R., and T. Soma. 2022. To the farm, Mars, and beyond: Technologies for growing food in space, the future of long-duration space missions, and earth implications in English news media coverage. Frontiers in Communication, 235.
Sobal, J., L. Kettel Khan, and C. Bisogni. 1998. A conceptual model of the food and nutrition system. Social Science & Medicine 47(7): 853–863.
Suri, S., A. Singh, and P. K. Nema. 2022. Current applications of citrus fruit processing waste: a scientific outlook. Applied Food Research 2(1): 100050.
Wittman, H., A. Desmarais, and N. Wiebe. 2010. The origins and potential of food sovereignty. Food sovereignty: Reconnecting food, nature and community, 1–14.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to the Space Futures Initiative, especially Carson Ezell, Olaf Willner, and Madeleine Chang, and to the Simon Fraser University Department of Philosophy, for funding. The authors are grateful for the opportunity to live and work on the unceded territory of the Squamish, Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh, and Kwikwetlam First Nations.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Schwartz, E., Soma, T. & Andersen, H.K. A Values Framework for Evaluating Alienation in Off-Earth Food Systems. Food ethics 8, 23 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41055-023-00133-7
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41055-023-00133-7