<p>This paper examines how individuals embedded in various food and health-focused networks can utilize the same concept—namely, “food is medicine”—to support different perspectives on what is and should be. The argument relies on two qualitative data sources: multisite event ethnographies of more than a dozen conferences and workshops focused on the food is medicine concept, and twenty-four semi-structured interviews. Those interviewed and observed include key professionals and knowledge producers—public health officials, scientists, alternative medicine practitioners, and social media influencers—whose authority and institutional ties play a central role in shaping the relevant discourse and practices. The paper draws from a variety of literature, including Science and Technology Studies and concepts like boundary work, matters of fact and concerns, and the relationality of expertise, as well as critical food studies with concepts that include the individualization and personalization of health and nutrition, food scientism, and the neoliberalization of responsibility for health. While facts are important in these debates, phenomena such as expertise and evidence are not self-evident but rather relationally constituted. Understanding how these concepts are put to work and to what end involves examining the competing concerns, anxieties, and values that influence the selection of relevant facts, which makes this analysis also about understanding the subjects created through these competing frames. Ultimately, deep tensions are described, evidenced by some who view the term (food is medicine) as a rallying cry for using food as a substitute for medicine, including vaccines.</p>

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When meal plans substitute for prescription pads: the contested terrain of the food-is-medicine concept

  • Michael Carolan

摘要

This paper examines how individuals embedded in various food and health-focused networks can utilize the same concept—namely, “food is medicine”—to support different perspectives on what is and should be. The argument relies on two qualitative data sources: multisite event ethnographies of more than a dozen conferences and workshops focused on the food is medicine concept, and twenty-four semi-structured interviews. Those interviewed and observed include key professionals and knowledge producers—public health officials, scientists, alternative medicine practitioners, and social media influencers—whose authority and institutional ties play a central role in shaping the relevant discourse and practices. The paper draws from a variety of literature, including Science and Technology Studies and concepts like boundary work, matters of fact and concerns, and the relationality of expertise, as well as critical food studies with concepts that include the individualization and personalization of health and nutrition, food scientism, and the neoliberalization of responsibility for health. While facts are important in these debates, phenomena such as expertise and evidence are not self-evident but rather relationally constituted. Understanding how these concepts are put to work and to what end involves examining the competing concerns, anxieties, and values that influence the selection of relevant facts, which makes this analysis also about understanding the subjects created through these competing frames. Ultimately, deep tensions are described, evidenced by some who view the term (food is medicine) as a rallying cry for using food as a substitute for medicine, including vaccines.