We've been talking all week about the many 'invisible hands' (economics, science, psychology, marketing, ethics, politics...) that determine food production and consumption. For neo-liberal economics, 'markets' work by 'laws' and don't really involve living people much—except that we supposedly make 'rational decisions' to 'maximize utility.' We all thought it might be a lot more complicated than that.
We'll soon take our work into more personal, more 'pleasure-able' more 'body' aspects of cooking and eating, but for now, let's look at the degree to which we really are 'free to choose' what we eat. Let's analyze a specific eating act.
• select a moment when you made a choice about what to eat (or purchase, or cook, or whatever eating dimensions turn out to be important). 'Food logs' are an obvious place to look, but any recent, interesting food choice is fine.
• explain it in terms of its ethics, politics and economics, or other 'systems' for explaining complex behavior.
No-BS guideline: it's really easy to say 'I ate the chocolate raised doughnut because I always do, and I was hungry and they were on a plate in the kitchen,' or 'I just can't resist a chocolate doughnut.' Right. But that doesn't say much. Our models here—and the ideas / concepts / ways of explaining, even the terms—come from Friedman, Keynes, Posner, Pollan and our discussions and Background Reports. Use 'em.
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