Food consumption has become the subject of many prescriptions that aim to improve consumers' health and protect the environment. This study examined recent changes in food practices that occurred in response to prescriptions. Based on practice theories, we assume that links that connect practices with prescriptions result from evolving social interactions. Consistent with the life-course perspective, we focus on distinctions between public prescriptions and standards that individuals consider relevant to their lives. We rely on quantitative data and the results of qualitative fieldwork conducted in France. Our results suggest that consumers may change food practices when they reach turning points in their lives. They may reconsider resources, skills and standards. Middle-and upper-class individuals are more likely to adopt standards consistent with public prescriptions. Possible explanations are that they trust expert knowledge sources, their social networks are less stable and smaller gaps exist between their standards and prescriptions.

Social movement theory has recently paid a lot of attention to the diversity of strategies used by social movements to pressurize companies, and has spawned an abundant literature on the combined perspective of social movement studies and market organization studies. This paper adopts a rather different perspective, drawing on market theories from the economic sociology of evaluation to assess a specific strategy developed by a number of groups within the environmental social movement, which relies on the market's capacity to mediate their claims. The literature has widely considered why some environmental social movement organizations (SMOs) choose to address consumers, even though it is not in their tradition to do so and even though their objective is not directly related to consumption issues. I seek to contribute to this debate by analysing the 'how' rather than the 'why', by highlighting a specific social movement strategy which is mediated by market mechanisms. The paper provides an in-depth analysis of a strategy consisting of attempts to change the most prevalent valuation criteria within the market by introducing principles of worth that rely on products' environmental performance. This involves activist organizations suggesting new product valuation criteria, and then seeking to convince firms that consumers' preferences are changing. Their assumption is that firms will see new business opportunities, which will prompt them to adopt more eco-friendly practices. This market mediation strategy is designed to encourage firms to shift towards more eco-friendly supply practices, by creating business opportunities for them. It shows how SMOs, in order to directly shape consumers' preferences, urge them to introduce eco-friendly principles of worth into their valuation of products by providing them with market devices to help in their purchasing choices. By applying these strategies, SMOs seek to shape the market and create business opportunities for firms. Their intention is to make companies see the value of changing some of their practices by introducing new eco-friendly features in their products, because consumers have been convinced by SMOs of the value of such features. SMOs must then pursue two important objectives: one is to shape consumers' preferences for that kind of valuation category on the market by convincing them of their responsibilities and their role as agents of

Contemporary alternative food movement implement various means of action, which were previously developed by movements that were striving to construct citizenship through consumption. Drawing on the results of in-depth ethnographic studies, this article analyses the main fields of action of three French organisations: consumer education, implementation of alternative forms of trade and consumer mobilisation in protest campaigns. It shows that these actions require the movement to build representations of consumers, highlight their potential power within the framework of regulations and provide them with various tools to make the right choice. The article also presents the difficulties these organisations face in articulating political action and economic engagement. Consumption remains an important means for recruiting and mobilising individuals. Yet neither individuals nor movements can entirely overlook certain consumerist modes of functioning that stem from the current features of the agro-food system and the irreducible nature of the freedom of choice.