ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the changing nature of the food supply and how it is financed, structured, processed, distributed and marketed. It discusses critiques of these activities, explores how the food industry understands consumption, and investigates concerns revealed by industry regarding human health. It also explores the historical continuities in the ways industry, forms of governance and technology have engaged with the food supply, altering consumption practices in class-specific ways. The insights from the exploration of link between social class, diet and health, and even political ideology and bodyweight trends, need to be situated within the context from which they emerge: namely, that of agriculture and the way food is designed, processed and retailed. in this chapter, industry texts which discuss these technical and scientific matters reveal an almost Bourdieuan grasp of how food 'choices' arise, and they raise concerns about the food supply resulting from industrial processes and the health of those who routinely eat the poorest quality processed foods.
