Lowlands Science. Photo: Lowlands WUR researcher Sigrid Wertheim-Heck will question festival guests about food consumption during this year’s Lowlands music festival science programme (18 till 20 August). ‘Suppose food was no longer necessary for survival. How would social practices and behaviour around food change?’
Wertheim-Heck is a consumer psychologist and studies sustainable food systems from a consumer perspective. ‘Within the food systems transition, we are justly concerned over how we are to produce food. But should we not focus first on what we produce, for whom and why? Social activities drive the greatest part of our food consumption, and our entire society is designed for consumption.’
Off the beaten track
Her experiment and the talk at Lowlands will focus on imagining a radical new normal in food consumption. ‘We will show participants five different audiovisual future scenarios and several dilemmas. In doing so, we aim to encourage them to venture beyond the beaten track. These five scenarios may appear unlikely, but they will help us to consider possibilities.’ The researcher declines to reveal more about the scenarios. ‘I want to keep it under wraps so that the audience will consider the scenarios with an open mind.’
Our entire society is designed for consumption
Sigrid Wertheim-Heck, associate professor of Global Food System Sustainability
She offers an example: ‘When we visit the doctor or hospital, we consider it normal that our tax and insurance systems pay for most of the expenses. When it comes to food, everyone has to pay their own share. This is considered a free market. That is also something we consider normal.’
VPRO Tegenlicht
At Lowlands, Wertheim-Heck will also join one of the debates on ‘tomorrow’s menu’ for the VPRO programme Tegenlicht. She will discuss the topic with, among others, biologist Hidde Boersma. ‘He has a radical perspective on production. I want to present a radical perspective on food consumption and how it is embedded in our society to counter.’
