The Heterogeneous Network of Functional Food Technoscience, Productive Risk and Impure Nature
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THE HETEROGENEOUS NETWORK OF FUNCTIONAL FOOD TECHNOSCIENCE, PRODUCTIVE RISK AND IMPURE NATURE BY HYOMIN KIM DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology in the Graduate Collge of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2011 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor Andrew Pickering, Chair Professor Tim Liao, Co-Chair Professor Jan Nederveen-Pieterse Professor Fernando Elichirigoity ABSTRACT This dissertation analyzes increasing interests in health risks and natural foods since the late 1990s by investigating the emergence of the concepts of functional food and lifestyle-related disease. For this project, I conducted on-line multi-sited ethnographic study to examine and examined the connections among food science, molecular biotechnoscience, the mass media and on-line communities formed around a specific brown rice variety with enhanced amount of GABA (gamma aminobutyric acid). I also conducted interviews with five Korean scientists who are actively involved in functional rice development. This research focuses on the processes through which biotechnoscience, the mass media and increasing consumers’ interests in natural foods constitute three major changes in risk society; (1) changes in the conventional boundary between natural and artificial foods, (2) between esoteric and exoteric circles as knowledge producers, and (3) between the mainstream biomedical practices and dietary intervention for health management. Germinated Brown Rice (GBR) has been advertised as a functional food in Korea. Since 1994, food scientists found that it contains higher levels of GABA (a major neurotransmitter with health benefits claimed in several pharmaceutical settings) than regular white rice. Interests in GBR indicate heightened adversity toward processed foods (such as white rice), growing concerns over chronic diseases caused by industrialized foods and advancement in bio-techno- science, all of which occur in Korea in its phase of late industrialization. Affected by theoretical frameworks of actor-network theory and posthumanist analysis, I demonstrated that GBR indicates a socio-techno-scientific network where a specific thought style and mode of behavior are co-produced. Food scientists’ experimental findings, mass media discourses of modern risks and Korean female consumers all promote values of functional foods, thus creating a chain reaction in mainstream society. Along this chain, food scientists’ interests in neurotransmitters are connected to the media’s accounts on GBR’s health benefits and mothers’ interests in managing their families’ health to on-line communities. By suggesting new analytical frameworks for natural and healthy foods after the 1990s, I expand the concept of risks from the general fear of industrialization into the interactive transformation of human, material and conceptual actors. ii CHAPTER 1.................................................................................................................................. 1 INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................... 1 1. Functional Foods and Their Bioactive Components ..................................................... 1 2. Previous Studies on “Healthy” Foods ............................................................................. 5 3. A New Framework to Analyze Functional Foods ........................................................ 23 4. Field Sites and Methodology.......................................................................................... 33 CHAPTER 2................................................................................................................................39 FOOD, TECHNOSCIENCE, THE MEDIA, RISK AND GOVERNMENT......................... 39 1. New Interests in Natural Foods ..................................................................................... 39 2. Functional Foods: International Comparison and Analysis....................................... 42 3. Living in Risk Society: Risks Meet Bioscientific Knowledge...................................... 54 4. Governments Manage Risks of Lifestyle-related Diseases.......................................... 58 5. Understanding and Reforming Natural Foods ............................................................ 62 6. Summary.......................................................................................................................... 69 CHAPTER 3................................................................................................................................71 MOLECULAR THOUGHT STYLE ........................................................................................ 71 1. Introduction..................................................................................................................... 71 2. Previous Literature: Thought Styles............................................................................. 76 3. The Korean Historical and Cultural Context of Functional Rice Development....... 79 4. The Practices of the Mass Media................................................................................... 90 5. Vivid GABA and Remaining Controversies................................................................. 95 6. Summary........................................................................................................................ 103 CHAPTER 4.............................................................................................................................. 105 FROM NEUROSCIENCE TO THE KITCHEN................................................................... 105 1. Outline............................................................................................................................ 105 2. Self-management of Everyday Life ............................................................................. 106 3. Consumers’ Actions Online ......................................................................................... 112 4. Summary........................................................................................................................ 119 CHAPTER 5.............................................................................................................................. 122 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................... 122 1. Dietary Intervention as a New Type of Risk Management....................................... 123 2. New Thought Styles to Understand Foods and Everyday Life................................. 133 3. Posthuman as an Assemblage of Humans and Nonhumans ..................................... 138 4. Risk, Biomedicine, and Functional Foods................................................................... 141 TABLES AND FIGURES ........................................................................................................ 144 REFERENCES.......................................................................................................................... 166 NOTES....................................................................................................................................... 181 iii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1. Functional Foods and Their Bioactive Components During the late 1990s, a new health-administrative category, “lifestyle-related disease,” and a new food-marketing category, “functional food,” emerged together. Hasler’s (1998) scientific review article, “Functional Foods: Their Role in Disease Prevention and Health Promotion” provided an exemplary list of natural functional foods (including oats, soy, flaxseeds, tomatoes, garlic, broccoli, citrus fruits, etc.) and diseases that can be prevented by the regular intake of bioactive molecular components in such foods. For example, as beta-glucan in oat can reduce the level of total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein, oats are considered to provide health benefits beyond basic nutrition (see Table 1 for a list of functional foods and their claimed health benefits). Accordingly, oats or food products containing oats are included in the category of “functional” foods. This dissertation analyzes the emergence of functional foods as a new mode to biomedicalize everyday practices. In so doing, this dissertation triangulates the previous sociological discussion over food industrialization, perceived health risks in reflexive modernity, and the understanding of human bodies through molecular terms (DuPuis, 2000; Goodman & DuPuis, 2002; Hess, 2004; Rose, 2003; Sibbel, 2007). At the same time, it seeks to address their limitation in discussing a new assemblage of natural foods, high-tech biomedicine and consumers’ everyday behaviors. First, let me define the terms. In this dissertation, although I note existing confusions, I use the term “functional foods” to indicate foods similar in appearance to, or may be, conventional foods, which are consumed as part of a usual diet, and are demonstrated to have physiological benefits and/or reduce the risk of chronic disease beyond basic nutritional functions. This is one of the earliest guidelines for functional foods suggested in a policy report written by a governmental department (Health Canada, 1998). Lifestyle-related diseases include coronary heart disorders, diabetes, hypertension, mental disorders, some types of cancer and obesity. While “lifestyle-related disease”