This article traces the history of the US FDA regulation of nutrition labeling, identifying an 'informational turn' in the evolving politics of food, diet and health in America. Before nutrition labeling was introduced, regulators actively sought to segregate food markets from drug markets by largely prohibiting health information on food labels, believing such information would 'confuse' the ordinary food consumer. Nutrition labeling's emergence, first in the 1970s as consumer empowerment and then later in the 1990s as a solution to information overload, reflected the belief that it was better to manage markets indirectly through consumer information than directly through command-and-control regulatory architecture. By studying product labels as 'information infrastructure', rather than a 'knowledge fix', the article shows how labels are situated at the center of a legally constructed terrain of inter-textual references, both educational and promotional, that reflects a mix of market pragmatism and evolving legal thought about mass versus niche markets. A change to the label reaches out across a wide informational environment representing food and has direct material consequences for how food is produced, distributed, and consumed. One legacy of this informational turn has been an increasing focus by policymakers, industry, and arguably consumers on the politics of information in place of the politics of the food itself.

Accounting for Taste examines the history of the US Food and Drug Administration's regulation of markets through labels as a form of public–private infrastructure, built through the ceaseless work (and antagonisms) of public regulators, the food industry, and expert advisors. From public hearings on setting “standards of identity” for foods to rule making on informative labels like the Nutrition Facts panel, it links a narrow history of institutional change in food regulation to broader cultural anxieties of twentieth-century America, arguing that the recurrence to informative labels as a political solution reflects a transformation in not only scientific understandings of dietary risk but also cultural understandings about the responsibility of consumers. In describing this “informational turn” in food politics, the dissertation foregrounds the important role of intermediaries, specifically consumer and health experts, and intermediate spaces, such as labels, in the framing of political debates about the production and consumption of everyday goods.

Accounting for Taste examines the history of the US Food and Drug Administration's regulation of markets through labels as a form of public–private infrastructure, built through the ceaseless work (and antagonisms) of public regulators, the food industry, and expert advisors. From public hearings on setting “standards of identity” for foods to rule making on informative labels like the Nutrition Facts panel, it links a narrow history of institutional change in food regulation to broader cultural anxieties of twentieth-century America, arguing that the recurrence to informative labels as a political solution reflects a transformation in not only scientific understandings of dietary risk but also cultural understandings about the responsibility of consumers. In describing this “informational turn” in food politics, the dissertation foregrounds the important role of intermediaries, specifically consumer and health experts, and intermediate spaces, such as labels, in the framing of political debates about the production and consumption of everyday goods.

No abstract

No abstract