Food as distinction and practice. Food, eating and sustainability among different social classes

This project aims to create knowledge about the current cultural expressions of class in food and eating, and to analyze the important societal implications in terms of healthiness and climate sustainability of class specific tastes and practices.

Eating is a shared human practice and, at the same time, a highly distinctive practice by which social belongings are revealed and reaffirmed. What one eats, the way one eats, one’s taste and habits are embodied expressions of class belongings.

Further, food is highly inscribed with moral value. Healthy eating has increasingly become a sign of respectability, while unhealthy eating is seen as a sign of immorality and new moralities concerning climate friendly food consumption and sustainable food practices are emerging.

Using interview and visual data, the project will map distinctive features of food and eating among people from different social classes in Denmark and identify key classifying dimensions of food consumption.