Framing the Food System

Pretty simple, don't you think?

Source:

Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition
Volume 4, Issue 3-4, 2009
Special Issue: Food Systems and Public Health: Linkages to Achieve Healthier Diets and Healthier Communities 
Principles for Framing a Healthy Food System 

DOI: 10.1080/19320240903321219

Michael W. Hamm^a*

Abstract

Wicked problems are most simply defined as ones that are impossible to solve. In other words, the range of complex interacting influences and effects; the influence of human values in all their range; and the constantly changing conditions in which the problem exists guarantee that what we strive to do is improve the situation rather than solve the wicked problem. This does not mean that we cannot move a long way toward resolving the problem but simply that there is no clean endpoint. This commentary outlines principles that could be used in moving us toward a healthy food system within the framework of it presenting as a wicked problem.

 

Busy Busy...

It really has been a busy month. At UVic, I've just finished a four week course called Just Food taught by Jessica Miles. About ten minutes into the first class I realized that Ms. Miles was the sociologist with whom Paula and I had spent a couple of hours talking. Ms. Miles is looking at food narratives--the ways in which our relationship to food both helps construct and is constructed by narrative. (Of course, that's just my take.... ) So it was interesting to be in a class where I got to explore what she was taking away from these talks with people.
The readings were also intriguing. Topics like alternative food culture in San Francisco county jail (Sandra Cates' "Breaking Bread with a Spread" in a San Francisco County Jail from Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture Summer 2008) which explored the interface of prison restrictions and freedoms, food culture and gang culture, and Latino and African-American food culture, and Julie Guthman's Bringing good food to others: investigating the subjects of alternative food practice (DOI: 10.1177 / 1474474008094315 ) which looks at racial bias and the issue of white privilege in efforts to address diet and food supply problems in community food movements. the latter piece is one I hope to have something to say about in the future. All in all, a terrific class and one that absorbed a lot of my attention.
At the same time, I've been taking an online course through Coursera entitled
An Introduction to the U.S. Food System: Perspectives from Public Health, brought out by the Bloomberg School of Public Health.