Soc 808 midterm

Question 1

Which of the following is NOT one of the four ecological threats to the food system?
a. Climate change
b. Anthropogenic changes to the nitrogen cycle
c. Ecological costs
d. All the threats are exacerbated by food consumption patterns and population
growth

Answer 1

Ecological costs

Question 2

What is a “food mirage”?
a. Grocery stores are not plentiful, but food prices are affordable for low-income
households
b. Nutritious foods are not readily available, predominantly in low-income areas
c. Disproportionately high access to sources of unhealthy foods in low-income areas
d. Grocery stores are plentiful, but food prices are unaffordable for low-income
households

Answer 2

Grocery stores are plentiful, but food prices are unaffordable for low income households

Question 3

“Circular economy” is defined as:
a. When food is produced, sold, consumed, and leftovers discarded
b. Wasted food is considered a resource to be used and not thrown away
c. Food waste that was not edible prior to disposal
d. Food that is not considered edible for humans

Answer 3

Wasted food is considered a resource to be used and not thrown away.

Question 4

Which definition most accurately describes “food culture”?
a. Theoretical framework by which reality is understood to be a product of social
interaction and shared meaning
b. Focuses on the meanings of food, and can be observed in specific institutions, within
groups of people, and as part of everyday life interactions
c. An interdisciplinary field of scholarship that critiques implicit and explicit negative
stereotypes, assumptions, and stigma associated with fatness and fat bodies
d. A group’s shared practices, values, and beliefs

Answer 4

Focuses on the meanings of food, and can be observed in specific institutions, within groups of people, and as part of everyday life interactions

Question 5

What are the four major lenses to view the foodscape?
a. Political economy, sociological imagination, health and food, environment
b. Conflict theory, health, political ecology, environment
c. Political economy, society and culture, environment, and human health
d. Symbolic interactionalism, structural functionalism, conflict perspective, political
economy

Answer 5

Political economy, society and culture, environment, and human health

Question 6

What best defines “food loss”?
a. Food that is not used for human consumption, but is removed from the supply chain
before the consumer interface
b. The everyday practicalities of navigating the food system that is associated with food
wastage
c. Food that is not used in human consumption, but is diverted at the consumer
interface
d. Wastage in parts of the food system that are closer to the end consumer

Answer 6

Food that’s not used for human consumption, but is removed from the supply chain

Question 7

Brewster Kneen uses the term ‘distancing’ to describe what process?
a. Exporting locally grown food items to other countries
b. Living in areas where the environment does not allow for growing edible foods
c. The process of separating people from the sources of their food and nutrition with
as many interventions as possible
d. Buying foods that were not grown and processed near you

Answer 7

The process of separating people from the sources of their food and nutrition with as many interventions as possible.

Question 8

What was the most significant critique of the old food guide?
a. It didn’t recommend enough protein servings
b. It didn’t include the number of servings required
c. It included too little dairy
d. It didn’t have cultural foods

Answer 8

It didn’t have cultural foods

Question 9

Sociological imagination

Answer 9

helps individuals understand their own and others’ lives in relation to history and social structure

Question 10

Food studies

Answer 10

Uses a system perspective to look at relationships and patterns surrounding food while exploring the food itself

Question 11

Food system

Answer 11

includes all factors and processes that bring food from the land to our table and back again

Question 12

Foodscape

Answer 12

spaces and places in which ppl produce, acquire, eat, talk, and think about food

Question 13

Biological food choice determinants

Answer 13

hunger, taste, appetite

Question 14

Economic and physical food choice determinants

Answer 14

convenience, country of origin, cost, availability, and access

Question 15

Attitudinal food choice determinants

Answer 15

nutritional info, health impacts, food quality, brand preferences, environmental impacts

Question 16

Psychological food choice determinants

Answer 16

emotional determinants

Question 17

Social and cultural food choice determinants

Answer 17

cultural and social influences

Question 18

Food culture

Answer 18

focuses on the meaning of food, and can be observed in specific institutions (ex. cooking schools), within groups of people (ex cajun food culture), and as part of daily life interactions (ex. culture of fad diets)

Question 19

Is food a social construct?

Answer 19

Yes, so is taste and food preferences

Question 20

What does Pierre Bourdieu say about taste and class?

Answer 20

taste can be markers of class, taste is influenced by class and can be linked to social class position

Question 21

What are the two categories of taste?

Answer 21

Necessity

Liberty and luxury.

Question 22

Cultural capital

Answer 22

cultural knowledge as a form of capital; education and transmission of cultural capital reproduced social inequality thru taste

Question 23

Discourse

Answer 23

Group of statements that provide a language for talking about a specific topic. Sets social standards (ex. Canadian food guide)

Question 24

Fat studies

Answer 24

argue that fatness is socially constructed. Health is viewed differently across cultures and history. Society wants to control and contain body sizes, esp those of women. Examines fat stigma attached to body size. The oppression and discrimination fat ppl face becuz of their appearance.

Question 25

Industrial diet

Answer 25

mass diet is characterized by consuming a wide variety of highly processed (ex. white flour, corn syrup, etc.), nutritionally comprised edible products.

Question 26

Paleolithic era

Answer 26

hunter and gatherers, consumed wild plants and animals

Question 27

Neolithic revolution

Answer 27

wheat, corn, and rice replaced wild plants and animals

Question 28

Human diets - end of 15th to late 18th century

Answer 28

industrial economy, a decline in food quality use of cheaper foods, the move from rural to urban populations, the industrial revolution, mass marketing, and socially acceptable to consume less nutritious food and depart from traditional foods.

Question 29

Why should we be concerned with industrial food system?

Answer 29

generates cheap food. produced by fewer and larger farms.

Larger firms dominate agricultural inputs, food processing, distribution, and retail networks.

mask market forces through perceived choice in supermarkets and fast food restaurants

Question 30

commodity fetishism

Answer 30

the tendency, in a capitalist economy, for the range of social and biophysical relations involved in the production of commodities (including unmeasured/ undervalued costs) to be hidden and largely incomprehensible.

value is placed on the end object itself (ex. food item - mcd’s fries) and riot on the farmers who grew and harvested the potatoes for the fries.

Question 31

what does weis argue about the implications of not knowing where our food comes from?

Answer 31

it’s a characteristic of the industrial food system which shows increased rates of diabetes, cancer, and obesity. this food system has high food miles, contributing to the farm income crisis, and growing food insecurity.

Question 32

industrial grain oilseed livestock complex

Answer 32

industrial agriculture in temperate climates is dominated by extensive monocultures and intensive livestock operations. Focused on maize, wheat, soybeans, canola - commodity crops. pigs, chicken, and cattle.

Question 33

Political ecology approach

Answer 33

focuses on the political-economic tendencies, power imbalances, and ecological instabilities in how systems operate.

Question 34

closed lopped cycles

Answer 34

when most organic wastes and nutrients return to the land close to where they were withdrawn

Question 35

biodiversity

Answer 35

the range of plant and animal species in given area and their complex interactions

Question 36

Ecology

Answer 36

study of organisms and how they interact with the environment around them.

Question 37

Linear economy

Answer 37

when food is produced, sold, consumed, and leftovers discarded.

Question 38

Avoidable food waste

Answer 38

food waste that prior to disposal was edible (expired milk, mouldy cheese).

Question 39

Unavoidable food waste

Answer 39

parts of food considered unedible for humans (bones, eggshells, coffee grounds)

Question 40

Agroecology

Answer 40

working with nature to mimic natural processes and conserve the ecological integrity

Question 41

Organic farming

Answer 41

a system that avoids using synthetic pesticides, and fertilizers, emphasizing building soil quality.

Question 42

Food waste

Answer 42

food that’s not used in human consumption, but is diverted at the consumer interface (ex. in households, food service, food retail)

Question 43

Food environment

Answer 43

physical, social, economic, cultural, and political factors that impact the accessibility and adequacy of food within a community/region.

Question 43

Food mirages

Answer 43

low-income areas where nutritious foods are not readily available

Question 44

Food swamps

Answer 44

low-income areas where there’s high access to convenience stores, fast food outlets, and other sources of unhealthy foods. Form of the unhealthy food environment in Canada.

Question 45

4 healthy eating strategies

Answer 45

improve healthy eating info

improve the nutrition quality of foods

protect vulnerable populations

(only the first 3 matter!!!)

support increased access to and availability of nutritious foods

Question 46

Spatial colonization

Answer 46

process whereby food corps secure the physical visibility and availability of the product within a specific food environment

Fast food corps - securing desirable real estate in high traffic areas

pseudo food manufacturers - product visibility in the supermarket = front of package nutrition labeling.

Question 47

Supermarkets as a food environment

Answer 47

retailers focus on volume and inventory turnover. They sell food and are in the real estate business - space is a markable commodity. Charge manufacturers listing and shelfing fee.

Question 48

Colonialism

Answer 48

expansion and maintenance of the authority of central political power over a distant land and its inhabitants, associated esp. with the ongoing global influence of the European empires of the 15th - 20th centuries. Colonies provided raw materials for Europe, thru colonialism Europe was able to become a political power

Question 49

Triangle trade

Answer 49

textiles and weapons sold from Europe to Africa, enslaved ppl were shipped from Africa to the Americas and sugar, tobacco, and cotton were transported from the Americas to Europe.

Question 50

1st Food Regime

Answer 50

centered around Britain as the political power

different than colonialism because of seller states

trade was managed by independent states that had their own gov and economies

interational division of labour - europe food was grown by farmers in other countries (ex. canada, aussie, usa)

Question 51

2nd food regime

Answer 51

USA as political power, they developed an industrial food system, which created wealth and surplus of crops in america, mass production from massive amount of ppl.

former colonies gained independence

Question 52

3rd food regime

Answer 52

role and power of international institutions increased.

many liberal policies developed, focused on gov power and the idea that they should make policies and regulations that’ll help the well being of society as a whole.

Question 53

Neoliberalism

Answer 53

free markets that’s free of any gov interment intervention will maximize individual freedoms and well-being. minimal gov intervention and allow the market economy to function without any interference.

Question 54

Green revolution

Answer 54

post ww2 modernization of agricultural production thru the use of technologies and practices intended to increase developing countries. The export of the industrial food system.

Question 55

What the pros and cons of the green revolution??

Answer 55

Pros: minimize hunger and the threat of famine and starvation, grow food more efficiently, mass food production, western countries benefited as it opened up markets for them to sell their products (chemicals, machines, tools, etc.).

cons: lost a large variety of crops (ex. potatoes), USA involvement had more to do with political and economic reasons than humanitarian reasons, global hunger and food insecurity still remain a problem currently.

Question 56

Bretton Woods agreement

Answer 56

become dependent on one another (countries) to prevent another war

Question 57

World trade org

Answer 57

deals with rules around trade between nations, main goal is to help producers trade their goods and services freely across boarders. Dispute facilitators.

USA and Europe file the most cpmplaints and most complaints are filed against them. becuz they have different ways of supporting their local farmers and economies.

Question 58

international monetary fund

Answer 58

loan providers to other countries, short-term loans, economic advicee

Question 59

world bank

Answer 59

long term loans to developing countries only, neoliberal policies, high interest rates, goal to reduce global poverty thru economic programs. focus on cash crop growth

structural adjustment programs