Meat in the post-truth era: Mass media discourses on health and disease in the attention economy.

The debate on meat's role in health and disease is a rowdy and dissonant one. This study uses the health section of the online version of The Daily Mail as a case study to carry out a quantitative and qualitative reflection on the related discourses in mass media during the first fifteen years of the 21st century. This period ranged from the fall-out of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) crisis and its associated food safety anxieties, over the Atkins diet-craze in 2003 and the avian flu episode in 2007, to the highly influential publication of the report on colon cancer by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in 2015. A variety of conflicting news items was discernible, whereby moments of crisis, depicting the potential hazards of meat eating, seemed to generate reassuring counter-reactions stressing the benefits of meat as a rich source of nutrients. In contrast, when the popularity of meat-rich diets was on the rise due to diets stressing the role of protein in weight control, several warnings were issued. Meat's long-standing and semiotic connotations of vitality, strength, and fertility were either confirmed, rejected or inverted. Often this was achieved through scientification or medicalisation, with references to nutritional studies. The holistic role of meat within human diets and health was thus mostly reduced to a focus on specific food components and isolated biological mechanisms. The narratives were often histrionic and displayed serious contradictions. Since several interests were at play, involving a variety of input from dieticians, (health) authorities, the food industry, vegan or vegetarian movements, and celebrities, the overall discourse was highly heterogeneous.

Convenience foods. What, why, and when.

An attempt is made to assess the academic interest in convenience foods in the past decades in order to introduce this special section on historical dimensions of convenience foods, prepared by FOST, a unit that investigates the history and culture of food (up to today). First, the rise of academic interest is trailed since the appearance of the concept in the 1920s and, next, themes in connection to this interest are considered (e.g., time, health, or gender). Then, definitions of convenience foods are tracked since the 1950s, which leads to suggesting a clear focus (linking convenience foods to home cooking of meals and industrially produced foods). The conclusion stresses the changing definition of the concept, as well as the need to gain historical insight in present-day issues related to convenience foods.

Elements of innovation and tradition in meat fermentation: Conflicts and synergies.

Fermented meats are often studied by food technologists and microbiologists with respect to their safety and quality properties. They are archetypal traditional foods, since they have originated as the products of empirical methods for meat preservation in a distant past and have evolved over many centuries towards a large assortment of varieties with strong territorial and socio-cultural connotations. Yet, an unambiguous definition of "traditional foods" is problematic and largely context-dependent, often being institutionalized and applied in a multitude of conflicting discourses by different actors. Contemporary food markets frequently rely on the seemingly oxymoronic concept of innovation-through-tradition, possibly as a manner to deal with a threatening and globalizing environment of change. The present paper focuses on the complex notion of "traditional fermented meats", following a four-dimensional hermeneutic setup (including a temporal, geographic, know-how, and meaning component). It gives an overview of elements of innovation and habits that are pertinent to meat fermentation and its technological and cultural track record. Such elements include the significance of time frames and localized production, as well as of artisan practice and the attribution of (cultural) meaning. Of particular interest is the reliance on "typical" microbial communities for fermentation. In addition, the boundaries of tradition and innovation in fermented meats are explored, with respect to what is acceptable to industry and consumers.

Constructing new expertise: private and public initiatives for safe food (Brussels in the first half of the nineteenth century).

In 1856, the mayor of Brussels proposed the establishment of a municipal laboratory with a chemist to analyse food and beverages to restrain fraud. His proposal was accepted and a laboratory - possibly one of the first municipal laboratories in Europe - was set up. The laboratory still exists today. This paper aims at tracing the conditions in which it emerged, situating it within the laissez-faire context of the time. It was brought into existence by a liberal administration, in a period of little interventionism replete with unencumbered private interests (those of bakers, butchers, grocers, millers, pharmacists, doctors and so on). What will be considered here is the general mood with regard to food fraud, fair trade, correct price, and the quality of food in the first half of the nineteenth century. On a broader level, this contribution addresses the frictions between private and public initiative, while focusing on the process of construction of expertise. The paper makes use of contemporary documents such as reviews, newspapers, association reports and city council chronicles.

Upgrading the local: Belgian cuisine in global waves.

This essay touches upon questions about the use of food as an identity marker, the nature of local food, and the influence of foreign food. Since 1830, Belgium witnessed two international food waves that alternated with two local food waves, both opposing as well as using each other's characteristics. In this process, local food was continuously redefined. Belgium reveals a relationship between local and foreign food both in the sense of incorporation and exclusion. Foreign food always influenced local cooking and eating. The opposition between the "self" and the "other" is at times strongly upheld: local food is labeled as "our," "authentic," "national," or "regional" (the "self") to make the difference with "their," "artificial," or "international" (the "other"). This classification of foodways as national/regional is used to forge sentiments of belonging, especially in Belgium where strong separatist political feelings lead to intense regional reactions.

Defining food risks and food anxieties throughout history.

Nowadays, safe food is at the centre of concern of governments, scientists and the public. This essay surveys the social implications of this concern, and particularly addresses the question how historical wisdom may contribute to present-day understanding of food scares. After reminding briefly of social implications of today's food fears, it presents three scholarly approaches to food crises and anxieties in the past (labelled "teleological" and "contextual", with a division of the latter into "limited" and "broad"), and provides one example of a complex relationship between food and health in the past. The essay concludes that it is not only indispensable to conduct historical research to situate present-day developments with regard to legislation or consumers' reactions, but that it is also needed to acquire a sense of relativism with regard to present-day food safety, quality and scares.