Book Review: Mass Media,Politics and Democracy,by John Street. Basingstoke,Palgrave, 2001

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations -     

The Class Politics of Alternative Food: Informing Public Health Policy and Remedying Health Inequality

The past decade has witnessed an interesting coupling between alternative ways to produce and consume food (farmers' markets, Consumer Supported Agriculture (CSA) shares, and urban gardens to name a few) and individual health‐seeking. While much of this activity rests on an ideological rhetoric of individual choice and “lifestyleism” strongly correlated with social class, there have also been a host of very different government and policy efforts aimed at improving poor food environments and the vulnerable populations that inhabit them in the name of public health. Efforts such as zoning against fast food franchises, placing stipulations on what benefit programs like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) can be used for, and taxing foods deemed unhealthy are sparking public debate because they cut to the heart of many American socio‐political debates: the tension between individual liberties and government intervention. Based on existing scholarship of alternative food, health, and bodies, and the author's insights gleaned from ethnographic research, this article sheds light on the potential ineffectiveness of such public health efforts despite positive – and often times class‐conscious – intentions. Such an acknowledgement raises critical questions about who benefits and who misses out in alternative food projects. While this article situates these questions squarely in the American context, it also highlights the need for other situated studies that emphasize other countries' particular political, cultural, and economic contexts that shape contemporary food systems, and their accompanying moral politics.