From the ethics of eating to the ethics of waste: navigating food consumption in the era of abundance

Anna Sofia Salonen

Chapter 35 in Research Handbook on the Sociology of Consumption, 2026, pp 407-416 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: By extending the research debate on ethical food consumption from food choices to food waste, this chapter unpacks the ambiguity of ethical food consumption in the context of abundance. The analysis draws from findings of previous studies that focus on ethical consumption in affluent societies and are inspired by materialist methodologies. The specific themes for analysis are the material resources available for food consumption, the material appliances that organize food consumption, and the material bodies that consume food. The chapter shows how ordinary life is built on ethical action and sustained by everyday moral reflection, and that this action and reflection are materially embedded. Moral discourses of food waste are entangled with inequalities, appliances, and bodies. However, instead of merely turning our analytical gaze from humans to waste matter, research should extend materiality to include human bodies that purchase, eat, disregard, and waste food.

Keywords: Consumer ethics; Food consumption; Food waste; Social sciences and ethics; Materialism; Everyday life (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035310500
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