Fruit and vegetable consumption determinants among individuals living in two areas of rural south west England were identified using a retail survey, qualitative study and an individual survey. Fruit and vegetable items were assessed using a shopping basket methodology; results showed supermarkets were the cheapest and convenience stores the most expensive store-types with quality, range and availability best in supermarkets. Focus groups were used to elicit beliefs underlying intention to consume Government recommended quantities of fruit and vegetables each day and understand rural individuals' food shopping patterns. Based on these results a postal questionnaire was administered among 1000 rural individuals (response 40.6%) collecting information on TPB variables towards intention to consume five portions of fruit and vegetable each day, actual fruit and vegetable consumption behaviour, food shopping behaviour patterns and demographics. All TPB variables were found to be good predictors of intention with self-efficacy and attitude the strongest predictors: some support was found for the inclusion of self-identity and descriptive norm in healthy eating TPB models. Individual survey data were analysed using descriptive and regression techniques exploring relationships between socio-economic/demographic factors, food shopping patterns, underlying beliefs and fruit and vegetable consumption. Gender, socio-economic status, age, healthy eating knowledge and growing fruit and vegetables predicted fruit and vegetable consumption; groups at risk of under-consuming were men, low/middle socio-economic status, low healthy eating knowledge and younger. No food shopping behaviour patterns predicted fruit and vegetable consumption behaviour and the level of retail provision had no significant effect on consumption. It is suggested that rural 'food deserts' may not exist spatially; they are limited to individuals dependent on less than ideal local retail provision. Beliefs predicting increased fruit and vegetable consumption were: 'fruit and vegetables are inexpensive', 'have good storage capacity' and 'enough time to shop', 'five portions reduces heart disease risk' and 'is enjoyable'.

This thesis reports experiments conducted with human adults and infants, to investigate the neural effects of observing actions towards food. The rationale behind studying neural responses to these actions in particular was to gain a better understanding of one possible mechanism behind social influences on food intake: the putative mirror neuron response. The first chapter (Chapter 1) presents a thorough review of the literature on the human mirror neuron system, with a focus on studies using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Based on this review, I designed my experiments to address some fundamental aspects of the mirror response that are as yet unclear, namely, the timing, specificity, and direction of the mirror response. My first experiments investigated the muscle activity and kinematics associated with grasp-to-eat and grasp-to-place actions (Chapter 2), and then whether it is possible for an observer to distinguish these actions based on seeing only part of the movement (Chapter 3). The main outcome of these studies was that there are early differences in the execution of these two movements; however, observers are not able to recognise a movement as grasp-to-eat or grasp-to-place based on viewing these differences alone. In the subsequent chapters, I report work using TMS (Chapter 4) and electroencephalography (EEG) in adults (Chapter 5) and infants (Chapter 6), which examined changes in corticospinal excitability and cortical activity during the observation of eating and placing actions. The data arising from my TMS experiment indicated that corticospinal excitability is suppressed in some muscles during action observation, while the EEG experiments indicated that the effects of action observation might be more widespread than the sensorimotor regions classically considered to be 'mirror'. In Chapter 7, I discuss my findings in the context of the wider literature, and consider how the methods, analyses, and practices commonly used to study the human mirror neuron system are perhaps not optimal for addressing the important questions that remain unanswered in the field.

Central questions of human geography can be explored in contemporary turns to organic and local foods (Goodman 2003, 2004; Murdoch & Міеle 2001). Why do people adapt differently to similar places, or vice-versa? Patterns are emerging in global trends of organic food consumption, such as the correlation of upper education and income levels with organic demand but these indicators do not explain everything, and too little is known on the micro-scale of everyday practices by different types of consumers in different countries (Raynolds 2004; IFOAM 2004). Buck, Getz & Guthman (1997) identified the Bay Area in northern California as one of the most significant centres of organic production and consumption in the us. My study focuses on Seattle and presents evidence that it is an organic growth pole in the same league as San Francisco, because so many Seattleites are concerned with food-related issues including animal welfare, environmental sustainability, social justice and nutrition. These ecotopic attitudes (Callenbach 1975) manifest themselves in behaviours linked to alternative food networks (AFNs), booming farmers' markets - and Puget Consumers Co-op, the largest in the US with 38,000 members and $93m sales which promotes organic and local foods, preserves farmland, and joined a boycott of organic-industrial milk brands because customers feared violations of USDA 'access to pasture' grazing rules in what I term the organic pasture wars (Pollan 2001; Cornucopia Institute August 10, 2006; USDA 2002; PCC 2006a&b; Scholten 2007e). Personal and family health is part of Seattle's turn to organics, but grassroots resistance to vertical integration in globalising food systems, evidenced by some Greens' vow to go beyond organic in USDA organic rules, may be termed altruistic, i.e. marked by care for others and the environment. Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK is, like Seattle, a former node for coal, steel and ships, but its champions such as Siemens have not been the economic drivers that Boeing and Microsoft have been on Puget Sound. Tyneside's consumption may have less to do with altruism than food scares such as anthropogenically-exacerbated mad cow disease (BSE/vCJD) which raised reflection among rich and poor, and induced vegetarianism in many young women (Whatmore 2002; Atkins & Bowler 2001). Foot and mouth disease, which spread from Newcastle in 2001, exacerbated doubts on food safety, and drove a turn to natural foods. Thus, while Newcastle is not claimed to be the equivalent of Seattle, both post-fordist cities host similar actors, often women, whose geographical imaginations transcend political economy (Marsden, Munton & Ward 1996). Ironically fieldwork was completed shortly before discovery of BSE near Seattle in 2003. The thesis brings risk theory into discussion of food. Its theoretical touchstone is the risk society thesis of Beck (1986) and Beck, Giddens & Lash (1994), attended by insights of Mary Douglas (1996) and Deborah Lupton (1999). Methodology includes interviews, focus groups and questionnaires from 404 UK/US respondents. Snowball sampling (Atkinson & Flint 2001) targeted groups in a range of stereotyped relationships to risks:• Academics: stereotypically risk-averse, undergraduates to professors, teachers & educators;• Firefighters: variably risk-embracing, or managing risk for career advancement' (Lupton, 1999: 156);• Motorcyclists: risk-embracing 'edgeworkers' justifying risk in work or hobbies (Lyng, 1990: 859);• Others: not fitting above groups, e.g. academic bikers, or motos with higher degrees if also teachers. Key claims are that Newcastle's organic use (three-times that found in Edinburgh a decade before) is on a continuum toward Seattle which has better prices and availability - evidence that the organic diet can be multi-ethnically democratic and not limited to elites (Tregear et al. 1997; Goodman 2004; Hartman 2004; Scholten 2006a & b). After a BSE scare, consumers often flirt with organics from afar before returning to conventional diets. But repeated scares may permanently dislodge the commodity fetish of industrial food, and as consumers' knowledge grows, more of them adopt food from trusted local farmers which better satisfies values such as health, local economic security, and ecological sustainability (Caplan 2000; Winter 2003). Seattle's political power as an organic pole is world class, but Newcastle also shows ethical strengths in AFNs and fair trade. In the new bio-fuel boom Seattle and Newcastle can learn from each other to resolve global issues such as food miles.

This thesis is a sociological study of the eating habits of shiftworkers. It explores the relationship of male and female shiftworkers to food purchase, food preparation and food consumption in the home and at their place of work. This included exploration of the interaction of attitudes and beliefs about food and health on shiftworkers' diets and patterns of eating, and their perceptions of the influence of shiftworking on food consumption and eating patterns. The research used a mixed methods approach and collected both quantitative and qualitative data; two workplaces were observed, 120 shiftworkers responded to a self-completion questionnaire and 43 semi-structured interviews were conducted with a sub-sample of shiftworkers employed in a variety of industries in Sheffield. A critical review of the background academic literature also informed the study. Quantitative data was analysed to provide a description of the facilities available to obtain food at work and the patterns of eating of shiftworkers on their last working and last non-working day. A typology of eating patterns, and profiles of the eating patterns types which were more associated with various groups of shiftworkers, were also developed through analysis of the data. Qualitative analysis explored the interaction of attitudes and beliefs about food and eating on shiftworkers' diets and patterns of eating both at home and at work, and their perceptions of the factors influencing their eating patterns. Conceptions of the 'proper' meal and 'family' meal were important influences, particularly on female shiftworkers' ideas of appropriate patterns of eating in the home. Factors within the workplace also constrained shiftworkers' eating patterns at work; notably the facilities available to obtain food at work; formal rules and regulations within the workplace; the organisation of the labour process, and informal social norms relating to uses of food. Gender appeared as an important influence on the relationship of male and female shiftworkers to food and eating. The study explored gender divisions of labour in foodwork in shiftworkers' households and found that female shiftworkers were primarily responsible for food purchase and preparation. The study found shiftworkers were dissatisfied with their eating patterns at work and at home as a result of what they perceived to be the constraints of shiftwork. The study contributes to increasing theoretical and practical understanding of the social influences on food purchase, preparation and consumption at home and at work.

This thesis explores the ways in which taste is mobilized as a sensory, cultural, and political force in contemporary Western societies. My explorations derive from a context in which there is a growing dissatisfaction with the quality of food and this is seen as severely impacting upon social and cultural structures and institutions and as altering people’s health, habits and ways of life. This thesis investigates in what way taste and people’s sensuous engagement with food offers insight into the nature of relations between people, food, and environs. It further examines how such relations tackle the transmogrification of food and the systems supporting it, how these surpass dichotomous views of fast and slow food, and how these redefine essential dimensions of what it is that constitutes food and eating. I show that taste, rather than being a static attribute which determines people’s choices and status, is an active process of exploring, learning, and knowing. The analysis of relations between people, food and the senses is grounded in ethnographic research pursued with the Slow Food Movement in Britain. This international organization, originating in Italy, advocates that the education of taste is imperative and people need to develop and deepen their knowledge about food by eating produce which is produced, sourced, sold and prepared in sustainable and equitable ways. The thesis discusses discursive and embodied ways of engaging with food and proposes approaching the formation and training of taste in terms of patterns of perceptual experience. In highlighting food tasting as a sensory practice, I introduce the notion of sensory pageantry and evaluate several tensions and contestations around speedier and slower modalities of experiencing taste. Thus, I demonstrate that training techniques of remembering, repeating, rebalancing and fine-tuning hone taste into a skill and mode of knowing. This thesis argues that taste is relational and multi-sensuous. Methodologically, this thesis takes an interdisciplinary perspective and draws on arguments, concepts and theories from anthropology and sociology, cultural geography and ecological psychology. Furthermore, this thesis introduces storytelling as a way of ‘capturing’ the evanescent and fleeting character of taste.

Despite a considerable amount of research investigating factors that influence the development of food preferences, there is very little research considering factors associated with food items themselves and the cognitive processes used by children to determine acceptance or rejection of a novel food. When offered a new food, children will see what colour, size and shape it is and may be able to determine its texture. In addition, they will be able to smell the food and may even be informed of what the food is called by their parents labelling it. Hence children will have a significant amount of knowledge of what the food they are being offered is like. It may therefore be reasonable to suggest children will use this knowledge and make comparisons to prior experience with 'similar' foods. This thesis presents three experimental chapters which aim to explore the role of perceptual (e.g. colour, texture and size) and cognitive (categorisation) factors on the development of food preferences. Chapter 2 presents an Explicit Preference Task, which enables children to self-report on their food preferences, complemented by parental report Food Preference and Frequency questionnaires. Chapter 3 presents a Longitudinal Food Diary method exploring the relationship between preference and exposure. Finally in Chapter 4 using a series of match-to-sample experiments to consider if children use colour as a basis for categorisation of food objects, a comparison is made against non-food objects. Results indicated children to dislike food colours particularly associated with vegetables more so than other food colours. This was found to be related to the amount of exposure they had to those foods and specifically results indicated children to use food colour as a basis for rejection of novel foods. It was also observed that whilst children use shape as a basis for categorisation of non-food objects, they are more inclined to categorise foods on the basis of colour.