Alternative food consumption: what is ‘‘alternative’’?

Abstract

Emerging food alternatives include a heterogeneous group of initiatives that contribute to efforts to re-embed food production and consumption within a social system. Often based on shared values and a common vision of a sustainable and local food system, alternative food consumption (AFC) may reflect a reaction to the perceived failure of the dominant mode of food production and concerns over environmental and health issues, loss of taste and seasonality in food, loss of food literacy, and food social injustice. Thus shared values and concerns stimulate new modes of ‘‘sense-making against the market and the state-sanctioned rationalities of industrialization and globalization’’ (Stassart and Whatmore, 2003: 449). AFC sense-making comes from elements within both mainstream and alternative food cultures, where the assemblage of meanings makes a unique and new sense. In this commentary, our aim is to examine the meanings behind AFC as a matter of ideology, sociocultural structure, anti-structure, and post-structure. In doing so, we hope to contribute to developing a comprehensive understanding of ‘‘alternative’’ consumption applied to food behaviors and, ultimately, its impact on individual and collective well-being.