Food Health Policies and Ethics: Lay Perspectives on Functional Foods
Author(s)
Holm, Lotte
Abstract
Functional foods are a challenge to food health policies, since they question central ideas in the way that food health policies have been developed over the last decades. Driven by market actors instead of public authorities and focusing on the role of single foods and single constituents in foods for health, they contrast traditional wisdom behind nutrition policies that emphasize the role of the diet as a whole for health. Sociological literature about food in everyday life shows that technical rationality co-exists with other food related rationalities, such as practical and economic rationalities, social and relational rationalities, and symbolic rationalities that influence citizens’ ordinary eating habits. An examination of lay views on expert knowledge about food and health show that skepticism exists with respect to the basis of and balance of expert advice. Critical points with respect to how functional foods may influence routines in the populations with relevance for public health include the fact, that they promote a way of thinking of food and health that is in conflict with well-established practical ways of ensuring a balanced diet.
