Week 1

Question 1

What is food?

Answer 1

food refers to any substance humans intake for their biological and cultural needs. for humans food is not just sustenance but carries a diverse list of social and cultural meanings in our lives

Question 2

food is an essential for…

Answer 2

biological organisms to survive

Question 3

what did reardon say about food?

Answer 3

“sustenance… a symbol, a product, a ritual object, an identity badge, an object of guilt, a political tool, even a kind of money

Question 4

most human interactions involve what?

Answer 4

producing, preparing and consuming food

Question 5

What does the term “company” mean in Latin?

Answer 5

company refers to people sharing bread together

Question 6

What is sociology?

Answer 6

systematic study of human society and social interaction

Question 7

What is the difference between sociology and common sense

Answer 7

common sense is not systematic based on individual experience, one sided, tends to reflect prejudiced and mistaken interpretations

Question 8

structure vs. agency

Answer 8

structures refer to pre-existing arrangements that influence our behavior, agency refers to choices individuals make

Question 9

What is the sociological imagination and C Wright Mills

Answer 9

the ability to see the relationships between individuals experience and larger society . It enables us to distinguish between personal troubles and public issues

Question 10

What did Peter Berger talk about?

Answer 10

Peter Berger talks about sociological perspective and helps us see:

• the general in particular
• see the strange in the familiar

Question 11

Jean Anthelme Brillat Savarin say?

Answer 11

“tell me what you eat, an I’ll tell you who you are”

Question 12

What are the sociological questions; factual, comparative, historical, theoretical

Answer 12

factual: what happened?
comparative: did this happen everywhere?
historical: how this happened overtime?
theoretical: what underlies this phenomenon. Why? What factors would explain this change?

Question 13

what determines out patterns of food choices? (list 3)

Answer 13

• constraints of custom
• demand for novelty
• concern for health

Question 14

What makes something disgusting?

Answer 14

Food disgusts are not simply centered on the sensory aspects of a food, but no knowledge of its nature or origin

Question 15

What is the great paradox of eating?

Answer 15

“to preserve their life and form living forms necessarily destroy life and form”

Question 16

What is food studies?

Answer 16

a relative new field of research and scholarship that focuses on the historically specific web of social relations, processes, structures and institutional arrangements that cover human interaction with nature and with other humans involving production, distribution, preparation and consumption of food

Question 17

how does food studies differ from other approaches?

Answer 17

• spans diverse academic disciplines (interdisciplinary)
• interested in interconnections (systematic)
• interested in social change (applied and transformative)

Question 18

What is a food system?

Answer 18

a food system refers to complex web of social relations, processes, structures and institutional arrangements that cover human interaction with nature and with other humans throughout the food cycle from production to consumption

Question 19

what are the key characteristics of the modern food system?

Answer 19

• treats food as a commodity instead of a basic human right
• goal of production is profit instead of satisfaction of human needs
• emphasis on rational organization, scientific and technological methods in production and distribution
• urbanization
• globalization