October 25, 2018, Senatssaal (Erfurt University, MG 1)
4-6 pm Keynote
Charlotte Biltekoff (University of California, Davis)
Holograms of Health: Natural Claims, “Clean Labels,” and the Politics of Expertise in the US Foodscape
6-8 pm
Veronika Settele (Freie Universität Berlin)
Healthy Meat, Unhealthy Animals? Food Consumption and Livestock Farming in Germany, 1950-1980
Joshua Clark Davis (University of Baltimore)
The Natural Foods Marketplace: Cooperation or Corporations?
October 26, 2018, Kleine Synagoge (Downtown, An der Stadtmünze 4)
10-12 am
Food History Colloquium
Abstracts
Charlotte Biltekoff (University of California, Davis)
Holograms of Health: Natural Claims, “Clean Labels,” and the Politics of Expertise in the US Foodscape
When it comes to food, “natural,” sells. But what does it sell, and why? This talk will explore the meanings and uses of “natural” within the contemporary US foodscape. Rather than debating whether or not natural really is better, safer or healthier - as many consumers assume it is - or seeking causes for the consumer confusion and ignorance that many experts assume feeds these trends, this analysis will situate the allure of natural food within larger historical trends, explore "natural food imaginaries," and describe the material realities that these imaginaries are bringing into being through “consumer driven” product development across all sectors of the food industry. Broader issues at stake in these negotiations include the role and status of trust, scientific expertise and science communication in contemporary food politics.
Veronika Settele (Freie Universität Berlin)
"Healthy Meat, Unhealthy Animals? Food Consumption and Livestock Farming in Germany, 1950-1980"
When German farms began to transform into factories in the second half of the twentieth century, consumers increasingly gained access to more of those pieces of meat they desired most. To provide beef steaks, chicken breast and lean ham for everybody who required it – which was, especially up to 1980, basically everybody – the business and processes of farm animals were reshaped. Consumers’ and producers’ interests coalesced in the bodily transformation of the animals. New breeding and fattening techniques allowed farmers to increase the added value of each animal, while producing the type of animals the market demanded most. In addition to the social prestige of a meat-centered diet, human health had become the primary argument behind the pursuit of steadily more and “better” meat. However, the transformation of both the animals as well as consumer preferences led to new difficulties: Firstly, redesigning animals from one generation to the next turned out to be more difficult than redesigning non-animated industrialized products. The complexity of living bodies led to constant health troubles of the animals. Secondly, the husbandry conditions needed to produce the types of meat desired began to attract public critique. Modern livestock production, previously shaped by health-driven consumer preferences, became known as a thoroughly unhealthy space both for the animals living there, the surrounding environment as well as for the people working there. In turn, German consumers simultaneously did and did not get what they wanted.
Joshua Clark Davis (University of Baltimore)
The Natural Foods Marketplace: Cooperation or Corporations?
Since the 1960s, natural foods businesses selling vegetarian and organic products have vowed to advance environmental sustainability, animal rights, and even pacifism. But natural foods sellers have also promoted their trade as an ethical alternative to supermarkets’ economic model, one that they have argued exploited workers, prized managerial hierarchy, and sought to maximize profits above all else. In the 1960s and ‘70s, natural foods stores eagerly embraced cooperative ownership and collective management. But by 1980s, the natural foods market in the United States become more lucrative than anyone could have imagined just a decade earlier. As a new generation of companies such as Whole Foods Market aggressively pursued profits, they moved far from the values of natural foods co-ops that had emerged out of social movements. In the twenty-first century, organic supermarkets such as Whole Foods, now owned by Amazon, seem in many regards indistinguishable from conventional upscale supermarkets that have added organic foods to their inventory over the decades. And yet, in the United States and around the world, many people who establish cooperatives still see natural foods—for lack of a better term—as natural allies. Thus, the central question of this talk: have corporations intent on maximizing profits gained full control of the natural foods marketplace, or do natural foods still offer promise to co-ops and others seeking to develop economic and ethical alternatives to more exploitative forms of capitalism?