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Why do certain foods conjure strong childhood memories? Why do we share pictures of our meals on social media? Why do some “comfort foods” make us feel better when we’re down?
This month, Bloomsbury Collections explores our relationship with eating through a cultural lens with book selections examining how we view food and the complicated feelings we have about what we consume. Scroll down to discover essays written by experts in the field of food studies, part of a vast cross-disciplinary library that includes titles about food history, anthropology, media studies, health and nutrition, and more.
Our relationship with food can be complex, particularly when it comes to overconsumption. In her book The Psychology of Overeating: Food and the Culture of Consumerism, Kima Cargill investigates how developments in food science, branding, and marketing have transformed Western diets and how the food industry employs psychology to trick us into overeating.
In this provided chapter, Cargill not only illuminates how the food industry uses deceptive practices to chip away at our psychological defenses, but how we may be unwitting accomplices.
What internal and external forces influence what we eat? Leighann Chaffee and Stephanie da Silva apply a psychological perspective to the subject in their book A Guide to the Psychology of Eating, illuminating contemporary eating topics that include overnutrition, eating disorders, dieting, and body image.
Read this sample chapter in which Chaffee and da Silva explore social influences on consumption: friends and family, diet and shopping trends, media, and other factors that affect our eating and drinking.
The influence of food has grown rapidly as it has become more intertwined with popular culture. The Bloomsbury Handbook of Food and Popular Culture brings together more than 20 original essays from leading experts, offering an authoritative, comprehensive overview of this growing research field.
In this provided chapter, authors Amy Bentley and Shayne Leslie Figueroa take readers through a life in food, from jars of branded baby food to our favorite school lunch boxes to the food fads that influence us as adult consumers, illustrating how popular culture shapes our eating choices throughout our lives.
When it comes to eating, one of our most complicated relationships with food involves our feelings around fat; we know our bodies need to consume it, yet we are told to avoid and even fear it. In her book fat, from Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons series, Hanne Blank takes a look at fat itself, considering it from dietary, social, and psychological perspectives.
In this provided chapter, aptly titled “Foe,” Blank explores how Western culture teaches us to see fat as an enemy, despite the fact that fat is not only impossible to avoid in food, but is an important part of physical health.
Researching food culture can mean exploring a range of disciplines including communication studies, anthropology, history, and more. In The Bloomsbury Handbook of Food and Material Cultures, diverse scholars come together to examine topics that include how food shapes environments, food representations in media, how food is marketed to us, and how food is produced, distributed, and consumed.
Read this chapter about a type of food embraced around the world, a seemingly simple construction of filling between two slices of bread: the sandwich.
The scent and taste of certain foods are often triggers for our strongest memories. But why? Food in Memory and Imagination: Space, Place, and Taste is a collection of essays exploring how food helps people around the world engage with memory, with cases drawn from countries including Iran, Italy, Japan, Kenya, and more.
Read this chapter considering how memory influences our enjoyment of meals, drawing from sensory science research on food design and flavor perception.
If you’ve enjoyed this taster of what Bloomsbury Collections has to offer, why not let your librarian know about the resource? Recommend it to your librarian here.
