Food literacy
Food literacy refers to the understanding of how food choices affect individual health, the economy, and the environment. It encompasses knowledge about food production, ingredient sourcing, product claims, and the broader social implications of food systems. This concept also emphasizes the importance of making informed and healthy food choices in a variety of contexts. Education plays a vital role in food literacy, particularly for children, who may initially believe that food originates only from stores or restaurants. As they grow, they can learn about the agricultural processes involved in food production and the diverse individuals who contribute to getting food to their tables.
Food literacy also addresses critical social justice issues, such as the conditions faced by migrant workers and the ethical concerns surrounding labor practices in food production, including the use of slave labor. Environmental issues, such as the impact of climate change on agriculture, soil health, and pollution from industrial farming practices, are also central to food literacy. Understanding these complexities enables consumers to make more accountable choices and engage with the challenges facing modern food systems. Overall, food literacy fosters a more informed and responsible approach to food consumption and production.
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Subject Terms
Food literacy
Food literacy is an understanding of the impact of one’s food choices on one’s health as well as the economy and the environment. This means understanding food production, ingredients, product claims, and more, such as the social cost of food production. It can also mean being able to make healthy food choices in a variety of situations.
Overview
Food production and acquisition involves many elements and concerns. People are aware of this background information to varying degrees. Sometimes food literacy is practical, such as when an individual weighs the importance of calories versus fat in a serving of food. Other times food literacy may be political, such as when considering the human rights record of the nation where food originates.
Food literacy often involves educating children about the origins of food. For example, many young children think that food comes from a store or a fast-food restaurant. As they get older, they may understand that vegetables come from farms, and apples grow in orchards. They may not comprehend the vast amount of work involved in growing food, harvesting it, and transporting it to stores, where their families puchase it. A focus of food literacy education is give people an understanding of what producing food entails and the many individuals who are involved, including migrant workers, truck drivers, cooks, veterinarians, food scientists, and shelf-stockers. Each stage of the process involves costs and benefits. For example, food production requires the use of fuel and produces carbon. Crops grown near where they are sold and consumed require less fuel for transportation fuel those shipped hundreds or thousands of miles. From a social justice perspective, food literacy involves an awareness of the living conditions of migrant workers, the welfare of child laborers, and the use of slave labor to produce some crops in many countries. Slaves are exploited to harvest cocoa, strawberries, and citrus; fish and shellfish; rice; and palm oil. Cattle farms and poultry farms have also been found to use slave labor. Consumers may struggle with issues of accountability and traceability when it comes to many food products, because components of a food—sugar, cocoa, nuts, milk, etc.—may be sourced from multiple continents. Manufacturers may verify conditions at these sources or rely on the self-reporting of producers.
An environmental concern of food literacy is the toll of global climate change, which creates more extreme weather conditions to which food producers must adapt. This might include replanting after flooding washes away a field or increasing water usage during dry weather. Farmers might also have to change the crops they plant if growing conditions become significantly different and no longer support the crops they once produced. Other environmental concerns include soil depletion, fertilizer and pesticide runoff that can pollute waterways, and the health of bees, which are important pollinators.
Beyond what is regarded as family farming, however, food literacy education can be difficult. Many products, such as meat, poultry, and eggs, come from industrial farming operations. Industrial agriculture is the largest producer of food in the United States. Some of these facilities have been criticized for their unhealthy and overcrowded conditions. Others have been accused of polluting nearby waterways with animal waste. Food literacy advocates maintain that all consumers should be aware of such concerns.
Bibliography
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