Consumer response: the paradoxes of food and health

Abstract

The papers in the session "Food Culture and Consumer Response," show how important people's values, beliefs, aspirations and social context are to their dietary health. They also reveal several tensions that shape consumer responses to healthy food. This essay discusses the paradoxical nature of eating habits in general, and describes three paradoxes related specifically to the challenges of providing food for health in the 21st century: pleasure/health, technology/nature, innovation/nostalgia.