Exploring everyday life dynamics in meat reduction - A cluster analysis of flexitarians in Denmark.

Exploring everyday life dynamics in meat reduction - a cluster analysis of flexitarians in Denmark. Flexitarians are attracting increasing attention in the research on meat reduction. But there has been limited focus on comprehensive understandings of a broader range of dynamics that can work as barriers and facilitators for meat reduction. In this article, we use social practice theory (SPT) as a comprehensive approach to barriers and facilitators in meat reduction in everyday life. We present an analysis of data from a representative Danish cross-sectional survey. We show, first, that Danish flexitarians can be divided into four distinct clusters (what we will refer to as classes) in accordance with combinations of everyday facilitators and barriers. Second, we show that the prevalence of these classes varies considerably depending on how long people have been flexitarians. We argue that the patterns in this variation indicate that over time people transition to other classes where barriers to plant-rich eating become less significant, and routinization emerges in different ways. Finally, third, we show that flexitarians do report eating less meat than consumers who label themselves as eating meat with no restrictions. But we also highlight that the difference is relatively modest. Indeed, meat intake is still quite common even in classes where routinization is highest. Throughout the paper, we discuss similarities and differences between the SPT framework and another recent framework, the COM-B model, that also provides a comprehensive approach to the understanding of behavioural change.

Hybridity and change in cooking skills in everyday life: Conceptual contributions from a study of cooking with meal-box schemes.

In a sizeable amount of public health and nutrition food research there seems to be an assumption that there has been a decline in cooking and cooking skills alongside an increase in the consumption of convenience-based meals. However, existing empirical sociological research on food in everyday life does not tend to support this picture. Instead, cooking and cooking skills in current everyday life are characterized by hybridity and change, rather than mere decline. Thus, it is necessary to draw upon an understanding of cooking skills that takes this empirically based understanding of cooking skills into account. In the article, four elements of skillfulness in cooking are suggested that can improve the analytical understanding of cooking skills in all kinds of food research. The four suggested cooking skills elements are the following: Balancing rules and improvisation; handling planning and organizing flexibly; assembling meals from different sources; and handling normative food issues. The analysis and conceptual suggestions of the article is based upon an empirical qualitative study of use of meal-box schemes in Denmark, and is informed by a practice theoretical perspective.

Linking socioeconomic disadvantage to healthiness of food practices: Can a practice-theoretical perspective sharpen everyday life analysis?

Food is one of the key themes in public health policy and debates over inequalities in health. In this article, we argue that more research is needed to understand how socioeconomic disadvantage is translated into low degrees of healthiness. We suggest that everyday life analysis may be sharpened by way of drawing upon a practice-theoretical perspective on the mundane processes involved in this translation. We base our suggestion on a small review of three strands in the literature on social inequality, food and health, namely public health research, lifestyle analysis and everyday life studies, and we take our analytical starting point in the latter. In the article, we argue that a practice-theoretical perspective may enable research in social disadvantage and healthiness of food that describes and interprets variants in the conditioned agency, which cuts cross the multiplicity of different practices that make-up people's daily lives. Finally, we suggest that a stronger focus on social interaction and social hierarchy would adapt a practice-theoretical perspective further to empirical analysis in the field of food, health and socioeconomic disadvantage.

Meal box schemes a convenient way to avoid convenience food? Uses and understandings of meal box schemes among Danish consumers.

The term convenience food is subject to diversification, lack of clarity and moral ambiguity. In this paper we address these issues and critically discuss convenience food by using empirical findings from a Danish study that deals with practitioners' uses of meal box schemes. The methodological design consists of thirteen individual interviews, four focus groups and some observations of cooking practices. We combine the empirical findings with a particular definition of convenience food by Brunner et al. (2010) and selected practice theoretical concepts. This particular combination enables us to categorize meal box schemes as a new form of convenience food called convenient food. In addition, results suggest that meal box schemes reduce leftovers from dinner. Meal boxes also influence dinner related activities such as planning ahead in time and grocery shopping, which require less physical and mental effort.

Mundane science use in a practice theoretical perspective: Different understandings of the relations between citizen-consumers and public communication initiatives build on scientific claims.

Public communication initiatives play a part in placing complicated scientific claims in citizen-consumers' everyday contexts. Lay reactions to scientific claims framed in public communication, and attempts to engage citizens, have been important subjects of discussion in the literatures of public understanding and public engagement with science. Many of the public communication initiatives, however, address lay people as consumers rather than citizens. This creates specific challenges for understanding public engagement with science and scientific citizenship. The article compares five different understandings of the relations between citizen-consumers and public issue communication involving science, where the first four types are widely represented in the Public Understanding of Science discussions. The fifth understanding is a practice theoretical perspective. The article suggests how the public understanding of and engagement in science literature can benefit from including a practice theoretical approach to research about mundane science use and public engagement.

Shifting responsibilities for food safety in Europe: an introduction.

Following the BSE crisis in 1996, the European food sector underwent profound regulatory and institutional change. The present introductory article introduces, and sketches the background to, seven studies of the institutional reactions and initiatives that were part of, or prompted by, this reorganisation. The studies analyse the way in which the division of responsibilities for food safety has changed both across the EU as a whole and, more specifically, in six European countries. Prepared as part of the comparative research project, Trust in Food, the studies attempt to go beyond traditional policy network analysis and work on regulation. They ask which constellations of societal actors and logics are important in the shifting responsibilities of public and private actors; and they treat this as an empirical question. It emerges that, at EU level, the main strategy for restoring consumer confidence in food was to enhance the institutional independence, transparency and consumer agency. In the countries covered by the remaining six studies, by contrast, institutional reactions in the food sector varied depending on the particular configurations of state, market and civil society.