This conversation is part of a special issue on ''Critical Nutrition'' in which multiple authors weigh in on various themes related to the origins, character, and consequences of contemporary American nutrition discourses and practices, as well as how nutrition might be known and done differently. In this section authors focus on the hegemony of reductionism and quantification in modern-day nutritional knowledge by discussing the historical foundations and ethical dimensions, as well as the scientific absences, in this knowledge.Reviewing various challenges to the energy balance model, they all suggest that the promotion of good nutrition is far from simple. Some authors also discuss why various ''invisible'' nutrients and measures of good nutrition continue to hold so much sway in nutrition discourse.

This conversation is part of a special issue on ''Critical Nutrition'' in which multiple authors weigh in on various themes related to the origins, character, and consequences of contemporary American nutrition discourses and practices, as well as how nutrition might be known and done differently. In this section authors discuss the aims and effects of nutrition interventions. In terms of aims, various authors emphasize how such interventions act as pedagogies of citizenship, governmentalize people as metric consumers, or reflect colonial practices. In terms of effects, authors discuss how the project of nutrition works in class/race differentiation, the disempowerment of mothers, or the interest of transnational corporations. All of the authors essentially challenge not only nutrition's fundamental claims to neutrality and objectivity, but also its claims to benevolence.

No abstract

This conversation is part of a special issue on ''Critical Nutrition'' in which multiple authors weigh in on various themes related to the origins, character, and consequences of contemporary American nutrition discourses and practices, as well as how nutrition might be known and done differently. In this section authors discuss the impoverishment of nutritionism as a way of knowing and engaging with food, highlighting how nourishment is not amenable to either simplification or standardization. Some call for alternate ways of knowing food, through revitalizing tradition and culture, for example, and some emphasize engaging food through the senses. One author is skeptical that these other ways of knowing food can address real nutritional deficiencies.

No abstract