Food and Society: Principles and Paradoxes

by Amy E Guptill, Denise A. Copelton, Betsy Lucal

This popular and engaging text, now revised in a second edition, offers readers a social perspective on food, food practices, and the modern food system. It engages readers' curiosity by highlighting several how food is both individual and social, reveals both distinction and conformity, and, in the contemporary global era, comes from everywhere but nowhere in particular. With updates and enhancements throughout, the new edition provides an empirically deep, multifaceted, and coherent introduction to this fascinating field.

Each chapter begins with a vivid case study, proceeds through a rich discussion of research insights, and ends with discussion questions and suggested resources. Chapter topics include food's role in socialization, identity, health and social change, as well as food marketing and the changing global food system. The new edition gives more focused attention to labor (both paid and unpaid) in all aspects of the food system. In synthesizing insights from diverse fields of social inquiry, the book addresses issues of culture, structure, and social inequality throughout.

Written in a lively style, this book will continue to be both accessible and revealing to beginning and intermediate students alike.

Genres: Nonfiction

264 pages, Paperback

Published December 27, 2016

Reviews

[unknown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Had to read for a sociology of food class and ended up enjoying more than I would

[Morgan Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

1/3 books I had to read for my class on food and society and honestly wasn’t bad