You are what you eat : ethical eating among college students

Abstract

The abundance of food in Singapore raises questions about whether Singaporeans know what is going on behind the food they eat. This paper concludes that college students are aware of the socio-environmental issues concerning food production and engage in alternative strategies to materialize their care for environment and sustainability through eating practices. However, there are various obstacles that college students face when it comes to eating practices. Borrowing the theories of Treadmill of Production, Commodity Fetishism and Normalization, this paper hopes to de-bunk the myth that consumers are powerless in the global food production system. Instead, consumers act as vehicles of power to produce and reproduce eating practices that come to be constructed as the ‘normal’ and the ‘ideal’. Therefore, this study aims to outline ‘ethical eating’ as a dynamic discourse subjected to external influences.