ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the concept of food quality and acceptability. Food quality is sometimes said to be hard to define as it means different things to different people, but within the notion of quality there are some characteristics that cross cultural and geographical boundaries. The chapter discusses the various attributes of food quality and what they might mean for the debate about sustainable diets. That the taste of food is important is self-evident, but the terms 'quality' and 'taste' are often used synonymously. The notion of quality itself changes, and is subject to long-term tussles between science and technology, on one hand, and 'ordinary' consumer culture, on the other. Beyond simple acceptance of a food and its taste, there may be other expectations about the quality of a food such as its nutritional value, ingredients, storage ability and shelf life, safety in terms of microbiological and toxicological contaminants, the presence of genetically modified organisms and additives, labelling and packaging.
