Living food diet and veganism

Individual vs collective boundaries of the forbidden

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3072908
AutoresTiina Arppe (University of Helsinki, autor de correspondencia), Johanna Mäkelä (0000-0002-3016-5629, National Consumer Research Centre, Helsinki, Finland), Virpi Väänänen (National Consumer Research Centre, Helsinki, Finland)
Año2011
Volumen50
Número2
Páginas275-297
Fecha de publicación2011-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSocial Science Information (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0539-0184 • E-ISSN: 1461-7412
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0539018410396618
OpenAlexW2114043732
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas15
Referencias citadas7

The article compares two distinctly modern dietary movements of the 20th century: the living food diet and veganism. It shows that, although food is one of the principal areas where nature and culture converge, in modern society eating is no longer a mere problem of classification (edible/non-edible); it has also become the object of strong emotional and moral investments. Both living foodism and veganism emphasize the importance of 'natural' foods, yet both are very much products of modern individualistic culture. Moreover, both diets involve rather extreme forms of denial that can make everyday life difficult (rejecting cooked produce, rejecting all animal products), even though the two stem from rather different motives. The data on living foodism is based on face-to-face interviews and a postal questionnaire, both conducted in Finland in 2006, whereas the data on veganism is based on existing Finnish theses, interviews from which are used selectively in this paper. The differences and the similarities between the two diets are analysed in light of the motives for following the diet, the assumptions concerning the purity and the impurity of the food, and the attitudes towards prohibitions and rules. The article shows that the stronger the role of community in the dietary movement, the more pronounced is the moral aspect of the diet and the stricter the rules defining the boundaries of the forbidden

Denial · Environmental ethics · Individualism · Political science · Social science · Sociology · Agriculture Sustainability and Environmental Impact · Culinary Culture and Tourism · Law · Organic Food and Agriculture · Psychology · Social Psychology