ABSTRACT
One of the points made in the Preface was that an analysis of our understanding of food choice should not begin with the minds of the discoverers or the inventors of nutritional wisdom. We should rather examine the construction and fabrication of this entity, known here as the modern subject of food choice. There is a very good reason for this. As we said in the Preface, the science of food and eating serves as the basis for many of the judgements we make about ourselves and others as eaters. That is to say, the moral decisions we make of ourselves (as ‘good’ or ‘bad’) are directly related to the technical and rational knowledge of science. Science then has taken on the role that was once the province of religion in that it articulates the basis of our moral concerns. Given the status now accorded to science it is very easy to see expertise – or the public or private instrumentalities who fund it – as being in the business of manipulating and controlling an unsuspecting public. However, this form of critique leaves us with a number of unanswered questions. Some of these have been raised by Smith and Nicholson (1995) who point out that the expansion of nutritional science in Britain during the early part of this century cannot simply be explained by reference to a conservative rhetoric about the ignorance of and, therefore the need to educate, the population – especially the poorer classes. Indeed, education and training in nutrition was part of the rhetoric of many left-wing groups who placed a high value on increasing knowledge of science as a progressive social force. The concern – some would say moral panic – that reverberated across the political spectrum in Britain and elsewhere about the effects of diet-related illness on the health and efficiency of the population can be better understood by examining the empirical and moral problems that were, and indeed still are, fundamental to the modern subject of food choice. Our task in this chapter is to examine the work of Foucault to see how this subject is constructed.
