Food Studies Commons^™

Ultra-Processed Or Ultra-Addictive? A Demand-Based Redefinition Of Ultra-Processed Foods, Braden Jondro

Honors Theses

Ultra-processed foods now comprise the majority of the U.S. food supply and have been directly associated with 32 chronic diseases including obesity, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes. Current classification systems such as NOVA provide a useful framework for identifying food processing, but rely on broad and subjective categorizations that may not capture the mechanisms most closely associated with promoting persistent overconsumption. In particular, existing classification systems remain limited in their ability to evaluate addiction-like behaviors associated with highly processed foods, including persistent purchasing patterns, reinforcement effects, and substitution responses. This paper introduces the Ultra-Processed Food Intensity (UPFI) index, an objective, …

Brief #1: Collaborative Aggregation & Marketing Of Local Farm Food: A Qualitative Analysis Of Farmers' Collaboration Strategies, Evan England, Rachel Filippone, Hannah Stokes-Ramos, Cindy (Luyue) Zheng, Olivia Burton, Analena Bruce

Food Practice Research

This report presents research findings from a comparative case study of four Collaborative Aggregation and Marketing Models: Local Harvest, a cooperative non-profit, farmer-owned, and certified organic CSA, Three River Farmers Alliance, an online food hub and regional distributor, Vernon Family Farm Store, an on-farm, year-round store that aggregates from local farms, and Fresh Start Farms, a food hub, farmers’ market, and CSA operated by the nonprofit Organization for Refugee and Immigrant Success.

Dorchester Food Co-Op: Member Survey: Examining Food Insecurity And Grocery Shopping Frequency, Amrith Fernandes Prabhu, Weichun Yan, Beimnet Kebede, Hina Khurshid, Susan R. Crandall

Center for Social Policy Publications

This report presents selected highlights of the membership survey findings for the Dorchester Food Cooperative’s (the Co-op) first year. The Co-op is a community-owned grocery store that aims to increase access to healthy food, provide opportunities for employment, and reinvest in the local economy. To assess progress towards increasing food access during the Co-op’s first year of operation, the member survey examined access to high quality and nutritious food and member perceptions of their shopping experience.

Below The Rows, Beyond The Roots: An Art Exhibition Depicting Agriculture Across The Globe, Maggie Enoch

Honors Theses and Capstones

In Below the Rows, Beyond the Roots, artist Maggie Enoch creates multimedia works inspired by her exposure to diverse agricultural systems and perspectives while studying geography and sustainable agriculture/food systems around the world. By integrating complex histories with the contemporary realities of farming, Maggie paints vivid pictures of the power of food in this five-piece exhibition.

The Diasporic Cookbook As Chronotope. [Review Of The Book Kitchens Of Hope: Immigrants Share Stories Of Resilience And Recipes From Home, By I. S. Svitak, C. J. Eaton, And I. S. Dean (Eds)], Marcella Prokop

English Faculty Publications

[Introduction] Edited by Linda S. Svitak and Christin Jaye Eaton, with Lee Svitak Dean, and published by the University of Minnesota Press, Kitchens of Hope: Immigrants Share Stories of Resilience and Recipes from Home (2025) fits neatly into the popular genre network of cookbooks that blend essay with recipe, mixing memoir with meals perfected over generations. But this book doesn't simply share the legacy of Liberian rice bread or summer beat soup. It explores the migration of these dishes and their cooks, contextualizing stories of displacement and development. Because of the breadth of this book, Mikhail Bakhtin might describe this …

Morals Without Movement: Veganism, Contentious Politics, And The Lifestyle Politics Constraint, Luke M. Carfaro

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines whether veganism constitutes a social movement through Social Movement Theory frameworks, emphasizing Sidney Tarrow's Power in Movement. Through analysis of veganism's empirical properties (collective challenge, common purpose, collective identity, and sustained interaction) and key procedural mechanisms (framing, mobilizing structures, and repertoires of contention), this thesis determines that veganism fails to meet the empirical criteria of a social movement and is more accurately classified as a lifestyle movement—a movement in which political participation is expressed through private consumption rather than sustained collective contention. Using the Make America Healthy Again movement as a counterexample, this thesis comparatively illustrates …

Good Food In The Neighborhood: Localizing Nutritious Food Access, Joseph Pool

Honors Program Theses

Given contemporary changes to federal budget priorities and recent challenges to federal food access funding, this research explores the potential benefits of entrusting state-level and municipal-level policymakers with food access policy. More specifically, this research suggests that “localizing” food access has the unique benefit of not just addressing the affordability of food, but the physical accessibility of it. As observed in the previous literature and expounded upon here, food provisioning requires consideration of nutrition, physical accessibility, and financial affordability. Programs that only address one of these priorities fail to adequately help people receive the food they need. Through policy analysis …

Envisioning The Role Of Community-Owned Stores & Aligning Federal Food Policies: A Participatory Approach To Food Security And Food Sovereignty In Sambaa K’E, Denendeh (Northwest Territories, Canada), Narayan Subramoniam

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Northern Indigenous communities have relied on traditional food systems for meaningful, nutritious diets since time immemorial. But many Indigenous communities in remote northern regions of Canada still face disproportionately elevated levels of food insecurity due to climate change radically altering the availability for traditional foods, colonial food policies imposing Western diets, and the high costs of transporting store-bought foods. Extreme weather events such as wildfires further isolate fly-in remote communities increasing both the costs of transporting store-bought foods and the difficulties of harvesting traditional foods. There are many examples of community-based initiatives for supporting traditional and locally grown foods, however, …

The Phone Eats First: Reconfiguring Cultural Capital And Performing Taste On Tiktok’S #Torontoeats, Annie M. Willick

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This study investigates how TikTok reconfigures cultural capital through the visual commodification and performative display of Toronto’s food culture using the hashtag “#TorontoEats”. Through a digital ethnographic multimodal critical discourse analysis, my research considers Bourdieu’s (1984) definition of cultural capital as the guiding definition of distinction, status, and personal taste. This analysis considers how cultural capital manifests through algorithmic engagement, adherence to platform norms, and TikTok’s multimodal format that blends video, sound, text, and gesture to entice audiences. Findings suggest that mundane food practices and activities are transformed into conspicuous commodities on TikTok, where creators position themselves as tastemakers and …

Cultivating Diversity In Sustainable Food Systems: Black Farming And Lived Experience In Rural Southern Ontario, Kadeem Jerofy Morgan-Adamson Mr.

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This research examines the lived experiences of Black food growers in rural Southern Ontario to understand how their perspectives challenge dominant narratives of rurality and inform broader discussions on food sovereignty in Canada. Grounded in postcolonial theory, the study highlights how historical dispossession and persistent inequities shape the access of Black communities to land and resources. Using a mixed-methods approach that includes surveys, semi-structured interviews, and reflexive journaling within a community-based research framework, the study documents the barriers Black food growers face. These include limited land access, insufficient funding, inadequate training pathways, and experiences of racial isolation in rural contexts. …

Growing Agroecology: Two Case Studies From The U.S. Student Farm Movement, Amelia B. Armstrong

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Scholars and activists identify agroecology as a crucial science, practice, and movement to move towards more just, equitable, and sustainable agriculture and food systems. Yet, the exploitative industrial food system, that deepens inequalities like food insecurity (Clapp et al., 2025), reduces farmer autonomy (Rotz, 2015), and contributes to increased carbon emissions (Lin et al., 2011) and biodiversity decline (Rotz, 2015), still dominates. Understanding and mobilizing the different spaces that teach agroecology, then, is a crucial step in challenging the dominant industrial food system. Agroecology education in university settings is an important domain to investigate as potential contributors to this movement, …

Brief #2: Collaborative Aggregation & Marketing Of Local Farm Food: A Qualitative Analysis Of Customer Relations Strategies, Evan England, Rachel Filippone, Hannah Stokes-Ramos, Cindy (Luyue) Zheng, Olivia Burton, Analena B. Bruce

Food Practice Research

No abstract provided.

Food Access Disparities In Fulton County, Georgia: Examining Structural Barriers And Community-Level Determinants, Paige J. Perry

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Food insecurity remains a significant public health issue affecting communities at global, national, and local levels, including Atlanta, GA. Despite being an affluent and rapidly growing urban area, disparities in food access persist across Fulton County. This study examines the structural, demographic, and socioeconomic factors associated with food access at the census tract level. Using quantitative analysis, the study evaluates how geographic location, population characteristics, transportation access, and economic conditions influence the likelihood of low food access. Findings highlight significant disparities linked to transportation availability, demographic composition, and geographic variation within the county. These results underscore the importance of addressing …

Mapping Climate Risks & Building Resilience: A Participatory Approach To Harvester Safety In Kakisa, Nwt., Susan Kerubo Ombwori

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The Ka’a’gee Tu First Nation (KTFN) community in the Northwest Territories is experiencing rapid environmental changes which are driven by climate change. These changes are threatening the community’s food security. The community is seeing a disruption to its traditional land-based food systems due to increasing climate risks such as unpredictable weather, thawing permafrost, wildfires, and flooding. These changes are reducing access to traditional foods and intensifying threats to harvester safety. Building on the existing relationship with the community through previous projects, this thesis examines the impacts of climate risks on the availability and access of the KTFN’s on the land …

These Roots Run Deep: The Exploitative And Progressive Legacy Of California's Citrus Industry, Pia N. Snellman

Scripps Senior Theses

While California’s modern citrus production is mainly centered in the Central Valley, Southern California was once the home of hundreds of thousands of commercial citrus groves. These groves have since been replaced with residential and industrial development, but the history and physical development associated with the citrus belt continue to affect this region. This thesis examines whether Southern California’s citrus industry has had a progressive or exploitative lasting legacy. Focusing on the impacts that this industry has had on environmental, social, and suburban contexts, this thesis suggests that exploitation and progress mark the orange empire’s legacy through opposing yet dynamic …

Economic Analysis And Technical Efficiency Of Cassava Production In Rural Households Of Yewa South Local Government Ogun State, Babatunde Taiye Oluwasola, Babatunde Oluyemisi Omowunmi, Andokeke Nkemdiri Nobert

Journal of Bioresource Management

The study examined economic analysis and technical efficiency of cassava production in rural household in Yewa South local Government area of Ogun state. Structure questionnaires were administered to one hundred registered cassava farmers within the ten (10) villages. Descriptive and inferential statistics was used to analyze the data; results revealed that the age of the cassava farmers ranged between (25 – 45) years. Only 55.0 % of the farmers were married, having both primary and secondary education respectively, majority (63.0 %) having 11-15 years of experience. The result of the frontier on the efficiency of cassava production of farmers showed …

A Collective Micro Food Farming: Maximizing The Limited Space Of Urban Neighborhood, Arnis Rochma Harani, Fathurrahman Nur Azmi, Kelfin Ilyas Prassetyo, Cheong Peng Au-Yong

ASEAN Journal of Community Engagement

This paper examines the concept of urban farming in residential areas with limited space to provide food security while improving the environment. The practice of cultivating food crops, vegetables, fruits, or medicinal plants in small spaces such as yards, rooftops, balconies, walls, terraces, or indoor spaces is a form of domestic adaptation with significant ecological and social impacts in urban areas. This study is part of a community service program that aims to maximize limited space for food production and green space. Three phases of the activity methodology are involved in this program, including collecting spatial data to identify potential …

From Elmhurst To Astoria, Indonesia’S Thousand Islands Find A Home In Food Bazaars, Adrian O'Farrill

Capstones

In Elmhurst and Astoria, three different bazaars focused on Indonesian food pop up once a month, all within two miles of each other, dubbed by the vendors as the unofficial “Little Indonesia” of New York. While there’s a handful of Indonesian restaurants in Elmhurst, for those Indonesians who don't have the necessary funds or even paperwork to start a brick and mortar establishment, or who don’t want to cook at a restaurant scale, the three bazaars in Queens present an opportunity to emphasize authentic Indonesian food and to make a profit for the culinary inclined of the tight-knit community.

https://adrianofarrill.com/cuny-capstone

How Does Vertical Hydroponic Farming Compare To Traditional Soil Farming In Terms Of Crop Yield, Energy Efficiency, And Cost?, Grace Morgan, Grace Henry, Rebecca Meenach, Jeana Odom

Student Scholar Symposium

Vertical hydroponics (hydro “water;” ponics “labor”) is a method of year-round farming that uses water in place of soil and supplies vegetables’ nutrients in a space-efficient setting. It dates back to 500 BC when it was used in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, a wonder of the ancient world. Thousands of years later, vertical hydroponics has expanded across the globe to supply leafy greens, herbs, and grains. It is typically implemented in dense urban environments where green space is hard to come by as a form of sustainable farming. Our research seeks to answer the question “How does vertical hydroponic …

Genetically Modified Crops In Africa: Evidence On Adoption, Economic Benefits, Environmental Effects, And Constraints, Aloyce Hepelwa, Innocensia John

Tanzanian Economic Review

Africa faces deep food insecurity with over 300 million undernourished people driven by, low agricultural productivity, and climate shocks. To enhance food production and sustainable development, there is potential seen in genetically modified (GM) crops. To explore the potential of GM crops, this paper examines their production, adoption, economic and environmental impacts, adoption barriers, and policy implications in Africa and globally. This is done using a structured narrative review of peer-reviewed literature, reports, and policy documents (2014–2024) sourced from different databases complemented by stakeholder consultations. The findings show that GM has expanded considerably worldwide driven by high productivity, reduced pesticide …