ABSTRACT
Food is less a discrete “thing” and more a system of actors (both human and non-human), organizations, cultures, routines, and material artifacts. This chapter provides the briefest of overviews of these systems—food systems. It begins looking at market concentrations, which shape greatly what and how we eat. This is followed by an overview of how tastes have been altered over the years, in part due to those aforementioned changes in global food markets. Next, attention turns to how culture shapes and is shaped by our understanding of what constitutes a (Western) “meal”. The chapter concludes discussing food waste.
