Food Safety

Food safety, which regards the basic human right to expect that the foods available are safe for consumption and do not cause foodborne illnesses, is contextually and historically linked to shifting ontologies of uncertainty. It has always been an issue of concern, but the types of food risks, the scale and nature of impacts, and the ways to mitigate and control the risks have markedly changed over the past decades, as have consumers in their ways of handling them. Food safety has become a major social and political issue, driving the emergence and advancement of consumption and food safety in social theory. Being a complex and constantly evolving social phenomenon with many dimensions, rather than merely an analytical category that needs refined definition and consistent use, food safety has become a new distinct and contested area within sociology.