There is an urgent need to move toward more sustainable diets. Although this will require radical... more There is an urgent need to move toward more sustainable diets. Although this will require radical and systemic changes across food systems, altering consumer ideologies and practices is essential to garner support for such actions. In this scoping review, the evidence on consumers’ attitudes and behaviors toward more sustainable diets is synthesized and a range of factors, considerations, and proposed strategies are presented that can contribute to building the societal-level support for urgent and systems-level changes. The findings suggest that consumers, insofar as they are interested in sustainability and have the capacity to engage with the concept, primarily approach the concept of sustainable diet from a human health perspective. However, the interconnectedness of human health and well-being with environmental health is poorly understood and under-researched in the context of consumer behaviors and attitudes toward sustainable diets. This highlights the need for (1) sustained...
The issue of food insecurity has moved to the forefront of social policy debates, with inadequate... more The issue of food insecurity has moved to the forefront of social policy debates, with inadequate diets affecting one in three people globally (IFPRI, 2016) and with low income persons carrying the largest burden. The impacts of food insecurity on health are extensive and resonate throughout a lifetime which positions issues of food insecurity as a central social justice concern. An increasingly normalized response to food insecurity, more commonly referred to as food poverty in Ireland, is the redistribution of surplus food. In the decade following the economic crisis of 2008-10 Ireland has witnessed a rapid expansion of charitable food services and the establishment of what would become Ireland’s first national system of surplus food redistribution. This growth was also facilitated by multiple co-existing factors and circumstances. These include the historical precedence and primacy afforded to charitable responses, the withdrawal of significant third sector funding post economic crash, Ireland’s persistently high rates of poverty, and a protracted homelessness crisis. An additional critical factor in this trajectory has been the deepening neoliberal ideology promoting novel, business led solutions and Corporate Social Responsibility responses to issues of social inequality. These features of Irish society combined with an increasing awareness of the problem of food waste positioned surplus food as a legitimate and distinguished approach to tackling poverty more generally. This thesis focusses on the contemporary charitable food system in Ireland and is set against the backdrop of increasing diet-related poor health, rising inequality, wider food system trends, and the experiences of charitable food assistance in other high-income countries. Using critical realism as a metatheory and Cork city as an embedded case study, several aspects of Ireland’s contemporary charitable food system are explored. This includes the organisations providing charitable food assistance, the surplus food flowing through it, the circumstances and level of food insecurity and ill-health experienced by its users, and the representation of food poverty at the national level. The overarching goal is to identify the factors influencing food governance within the charitable food system and its impact at the local level. The findings suggest that several dominant ideas and practices influence the governance of food within the charitable food system and work to indirectly support, and legitimize, the use of any surplus food as a response to poverty. This includes the conceptualisation of food poverty and nutritional poverty as separate issues which in turn supports the idea that health concerns are outside the remit and responsibility the organisations responding to food poverty. The local impacts of surplus food redistribution include redistribution beyond demand, in some instances the replacement of food vouchers with surplus and the loss of charity-based support for local food businesses. The findings highlight that the growing role of the charitable sector as a key food waste reduction strategy means that surplus food redistribution is influencing the diets, the health, and food cultures of low income populations using these services. Aligning these concerns with surplus food redistribution would prevent further deepening Ireland’s inequalities. A practical first step in this regard would be the introduction of a healthy food policy across the charitable food. Overall, this thesis demonstrates that the ideological framing surrounding food poverty have changed little since the early 20th Century where the focus was on the ‘personal’ rather than ‘economic or social reform’ (Miller, 2014), on providing food rather than addressing the causes of food poverty and with the local community as duty bearer. This thesis ultimately argues that a more critical reflection on food charity in Ireland is required with questions of social justice and the human right to good food in a socially accepted manner, taking centre stage
When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a ... more When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist"-Hélder Câmara 'We may find in the long run that tinned food is a deadlier weapon than the machine gun'-George Orwell.
Abstract The concept of an Ecological Approach to health and including Health in All Policies war... more Abstract The concept of an Ecological Approach to health and including Health in All Policies warrants inter-sectoral and transdisciplinary collaboration to improve health determinants and reduce health inequities. Agriculture policies, which greatly influence food production and its environmental impacts as well as food availability and dietary consumption, are therefore of interest to public health. Increasing rates of non-communicable diseases linked to diets containing high levels of processed foods, increasing numbers of households unable to access nutritious food and the environmental consequences of the food system are amongst the major health challenges of today, both globally and in Ireland. In 2010, Ireland’s Department of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries published Food Harvest 2020 a roadmap for Irish agriculture for the subsequent decade prepared against a backdrop of rising diet-related ill-health and increasing environmental concerns. This article critically analyses the process of consultation and stakeholder involvement in the development of Food Harvest 2020 from a public health perspective. Publically available documents including submissions to the Food Harvest 2020 consultation process were the primary source of data. This study highlights a distinct absence of public health representation in the process, an avoidance of some key public health challenges and the dominance of a ‘business as usual’ approach.
International Journal of the Sociology of Agriculture and Food, 2021
A substantial body of literature points to the necessity of a ‘Great Food Transformation’ requiri... more A substantial body of literature points to the necessity of a ‘Great Food Transformation’ requiring an urgent shift towards sustainable food systems across multiple levels. A key part of this transition is the need to reduce food waste and food loss by 50 percent and where charitable surplus food redistribution is regarded as making an important contribution to this target. Surplus driven charitable food provisioning is now part of the food environment in many countries and is influencing the diets of a significant number of people. Its proponents argue that such work contributes to a more sustainable food system by reducing food waste and food insecurity. However, few studies have examined the factors influencing the governance of food within the charitable food system. This paper seeks to fill this gap in the literature through an examination of recent developments in charitable food provisioning in the Republic of Ireland. Using Cork city as a case study we explore Ireland’s c...
Advances in Food Security and Sustainability, 2017
Abstract Projections over future food demand have served to drive agricultural productivism in de... more Abstract Projections over future food demand have served to drive agricultural productivism in developed countries in pursuit of “feeding the world.” Yet this process has been accompanied by a transformation of consumption practices featuring higher intakes of refined foods that have resulted in undesirable dietary health outcomes. Drawing on the concept of metabolic rift we trace the development of productivism in Irish agriculture, given huge impetus by the implementation of an industry-led agri-export strategy, Food Harvest 2020. The consequences of productivism at home are significant principally through depleted environmental support systems and associated potential threats to human wellbeing. The chapter then examines the changing Irish foodscape which has witnessed a rapid expansion of corporate retail and food service outlets. Evidence would suggest that these new forms of food provisioning have increased the availability of energy dense foods with Ireland ranked high in international tables in consumption of fast food and confectionery and low in fruit and vegetables. Paradoxically, despite rising volumes of meat and dairy exports, net food imports have grown faster especially as a consequence of retail supply chain logistics and the drive to cheaper food. Nevertheless, food poverty remains an intractable problem in Ireland and reinforces patterns of consumption that data suggest are evidently deleterious to human health. Yet the state continues to emphasize the need for individual behavior change rather than reforming a food system that, while preoccupied with agri-export success, is responsible for a high burden of disease at home.
There is an urgent need to move toward more sustainable diets. Although this will require radical... more There is an urgent need to move toward more sustainable diets. Although this will require radical and systemic changes across food systems, altering consumer ideologies and practices is essential to garner support for such actions. In this scoping review, the evidence on consumers’ attitudes and behaviors toward more sustainable diets is synthesized and a range of factors, considerations, and proposed strategies are presented that can contribute to building the societal-level support for urgent and systems-level changes. The findings suggest that consumers, insofar as they are interested in sustainability and have the capacity to engage with the concept, primarily approach the concept of sustainable diet from a human health perspective. However, the interconnectedness of human health and well-being with environmental health is poorly understood and under-researched in the context of consumer behaviors and attitudes toward sustainable diets. This highlights the need for (1) sustained...
The issue of food insecurity has moved to the forefront of social policy debates, with inadequate... more The issue of food insecurity has moved to the forefront of social policy debates, with inadequate diets affecting one in three people globally (IFPRI, 2016) and with low income persons carrying the largest burden. The impacts of food insecurity on health are extensive and resonate throughout a lifetime which positions issues of food insecurity as a central social justice concern. An increasingly normalized response to food insecurity, more commonly referred to as food poverty in Ireland, is the redistribution of surplus food. In the decade following the economic crisis of 2008-10 Ireland has witnessed a rapid expansion of charitable food services and the establishment of what would become Ireland’s first national system of surplus food redistribution. This growth was also facilitated by multiple co-existing factors and circumstances. These include the historical precedence and primacy afforded to charitable responses, the withdrawal of significant third sector funding post economic crash, Ireland’s persistently high rates of poverty, and a protracted homelessness crisis. An additional critical factor in this trajectory has been the deepening neoliberal ideology promoting novel, business led solutions and Corporate Social Responsibility responses to issues of social inequality. These features of Irish society combined with an increasing awareness of the problem of food waste positioned surplus food as a legitimate and distinguished approach to tackling poverty more generally. This thesis focusses on the contemporary charitable food system in Ireland and is set against the backdrop of increasing diet-related poor health, rising inequality, wider food system trends, and the experiences of charitable food assistance in other high-income countries. Using critical realism as a metatheory and Cork city as an embedded case study, several aspects of Ireland’s contemporary charitable food system are explored. This includes the organisations providing charitable food assistance, the surplus food flowing through it, the circumstances and level of food insecurity and ill-health experienced by its users, and the representation of food poverty at the national level. The overarching goal is to identify the factors influencing food governance within the charitable food system and its impact at the local level. The findings suggest that several dominant ideas and practices influence the governance of food within the charitable food system and work to indirectly support, and legitimize, the use of any surplus food as a response to poverty. This includes the conceptualisation of food poverty and nutritional poverty as separate issues which in turn supports the idea that health concerns are outside the remit and responsibility the organisations responding to food poverty. The local impacts of surplus food redistribution include redistribution beyond demand, in some instances the replacement of food vouchers with surplus and the loss of charity-based support for local food businesses. The findings highlight that the growing role of the charitable sector as a key food waste reduction strategy means that surplus food redistribution is influencing the diets, the health, and food cultures of low income populations using these services. Aligning these concerns with surplus food redistribution would prevent further deepening Ireland’s inequalities. A practical first step in this regard would be the introduction of a healthy food policy across the charitable food. Overall, this thesis demonstrates that the ideological framing surrounding food poverty have changed little since the early 20th Century where the focus was on the ‘personal’ rather than ‘economic or social reform’ (Miller, 2014), on providing food rather than addressing the causes of food poverty and with the local community as duty bearer. This thesis ultimately argues that a more critical reflection on food charity in Ireland is required with questions of social justice and the human right to good food in a socially accepted manner, taking centre stage
When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a ... more When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist"-Hélder Câmara 'We may find in the long run that tinned food is a deadlier weapon than the machine gun'-George Orwell.
Abstract The concept of an Ecological Approach to health and including Health in All Policies war... more Abstract The concept of an Ecological Approach to health and including Health in All Policies warrants inter-sectoral and transdisciplinary collaboration to improve health determinants and reduce health inequities. Agriculture policies, which greatly influence food production and its environmental impacts as well as food availability and dietary consumption, are therefore of interest to public health. Increasing rates of non-communicable diseases linked to diets containing high levels of processed foods, increasing numbers of households unable to access nutritious food and the environmental consequences of the food system are amongst the major health challenges of today, both globally and in Ireland. In 2010, Ireland’s Department of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries published Food Harvest 2020 a roadmap for Irish agriculture for the subsequent decade prepared against a backdrop of rising diet-related ill-health and increasing environmental concerns. This article critically analyses the process of consultation and stakeholder involvement in the development of Food Harvest 2020 from a public health perspective. Publically available documents including submissions to the Food Harvest 2020 consultation process were the primary source of data. This study highlights a distinct absence of public health representation in the process, an avoidance of some key public health challenges and the dominance of a ‘business as usual’ approach.
International Journal of the Sociology of Agriculture and Food, 2021
A substantial body of literature points to the necessity of a ‘Great Food Transformation’ requiri... more A substantial body of literature points to the necessity of a ‘Great Food Transformation’ requiring an urgent shift towards sustainable food systems across multiple levels. A key part of this transition is the need to reduce food waste and food loss by 50 percent and where charitable surplus food redistribution is regarded as making an important contribution to this target. Surplus driven charitable food provisioning is now part of the food environment in many countries and is influencing the diets of a significant number of people. Its proponents argue that such work contributes to a more sustainable food system by reducing food waste and food insecurity. However, few studies have examined the factors influencing the governance of food within the charitable food system. This paper seeks to fill this gap in the literature through an examination of recent developments in charitable food provisioning in the Republic of Ireland. Using Cork city as a case study we explore Ireland’s c...
Advances in Food Security and Sustainability, 2017
Abstract Projections over future food demand have served to drive agricultural productivism in de... more Abstract Projections over future food demand have served to drive agricultural productivism in developed countries in pursuit of “feeding the world.” Yet this process has been accompanied by a transformation of consumption practices featuring higher intakes of refined foods that have resulted in undesirable dietary health outcomes. Drawing on the concept of metabolic rift we trace the development of productivism in Irish agriculture, given huge impetus by the implementation of an industry-led agri-export strategy, Food Harvest 2020. The consequences of productivism at home are significant principally through depleted environmental support systems and associated potential threats to human wellbeing. The chapter then examines the changing Irish foodscape which has witnessed a rapid expansion of corporate retail and food service outlets. Evidence would suggest that these new forms of food provisioning have increased the availability of energy dense foods with Ireland ranked high in international tables in consumption of fast food and confectionery and low in fruit and vegetables. Paradoxically, despite rising volumes of meat and dairy exports, net food imports have grown faster especially as a consequence of retail supply chain logistics and the drive to cheaper food. Nevertheless, food poverty remains an intractable problem in Ireland and reinforces patterns of consumption that data suggest are evidently deleterious to human health. Yet the state continues to emphasize the need for individual behavior change rather than reforming a food system that, while preoccupied with agri-export success, is responsible for a high burden of disease at home.
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Papers by Tara Kenny