Complex consumption: An analysis of American eating practices

This dissertation explores the complexity of American eating practices from the perspective of the consumer. The comfort anxiety dialectic served as a backdrop for analyzing data collected using multiple methods. The phenomenological interviews explored how informants navigate food provisioning and eating along with other life activities. Data for the study also included and researcher observations during the interviews. A larger pool of informants including the eight key informants completed a customized four-day food diary. The key informants were also interviewed after they completed their food diary. The data from the interviews, observation and food diaries were analyzed on two levels: intertextually and intratextually. From the analysis, emergent themes were described and considered against relevant theories. The data from this study suggest that American eating practices have changed as has the role of food in our lives. Specifically consumers spend less time cooking, eating and socializing around food. Informants expressed anxiety around the logistics of cooking and the time spent cooking and eating. The overwhelming majority of these informants never learned to cook as children and expressed frustration and a lack of confidence about meal planning and preparation. In contrast, informants felt comfortable about their level of knowledge around nutrition and healthy eating and admitted that they do not always act on the knowledge they possess. My research suggests that while the marketplace offers myriad solutions for quick simple meals it does not offer a solution to remove the stressful logistics of meal preparation and planning and most importantly time pressure. Finally, the data show that additional information provision alone is not the solution for sustainable changes in behavior.