What do food labels teach people about food ethics?

Abstract

This chapter proposes that food labels should be viewed as a form of informal pedagogy because they are explicitly designed to inform consumers and provide them with some form of useful knowledge. Most Australian food labels are currently adequate to allow basic discrimination between products, particularly regarding core ingredients, nutritional content, and food safety. The chapter focuses on the lens of pedagogy on the types of product knowledge that are assumed and transferred via ethical food labels, particularly scientifically based knowledge claims. One study within public understanding of science that has specifically explored food labels examines them through the lens of boundary objects which are objects that form an interface between one group and another. Sally Eden suggests that viewing food labels as boundary objects allows us to see that labels are sometimes given different meanings by producers and consumers which fail to facilitate the collective work of reconnecting consumers with producers and promoting purchase.