Category Archives: Food

(Un)accepted foods: Why are some edible substances considered food and others not?

Posted on by

My Little Pony Burger

Last night Stichting Ruw hosted an event on “(Un)accepted Foods”.

The goal of the evening was to learn more about the potential of insects as food and about eating unconventional food products like horse and goose meat. 

There were excellent presentations.

Rob Hagenouw, an artist, spoke about his project Keuken van het Ongewenst Dier(Kitchen of the Unwanted Animal) where they make and sell  “My Little Pony Burgers” and croquettes from geese shot at the airport.

Arnold van Huis, author of ‘The Insect Cookbook’ and Professor of Entomology (see his TED talk here) gave a fascinating talk covering the opportunities and challenges association with the development of an insect eating culture in Europe.

Jessica Duncan, from the Rural Sociology Group, provided a socio-cultural perspective on food categorisation: why are some edible substances considered food and others not. The presentation is available here.

PUREFOOD conference teaser – The many benefits of local food

Posted on by

On May 14 and 15 2014 the PUREFOOD conference entitled “Take action? Collaborative action for more sustainable food systems” will take place in Utrecht (The Netherlands). The morning of the first day (Wednesday May 14) will take place in the Central Museum of Utrecht and consists of three inspirational presentations followed by a reflection by keynote listener Professor Tim Lang and discussions in workshops. In the afternoon there will be three excursions to urban and peri-urban agriculture and food initiatives in and around Utrecht.

The second day of the conference (Thursday May 15) will take place in DeFabrique in Utrecht. This second day is a joint event of PUREFOOD and the Day of Urban Farming, with a keynote speech by Claus Meyer (founder of the New Nordic Cuisine movement and co-owner of restaurant Noma in Copenhagen, which is considered to be the world’s best restaurant) and a wide variety of parallel workshops. For more information see the conference program.

As a teaser for the PUREFOOD conference Creative Beards has made a short animation movie addressing the main issues that have been studied in PUREFOOD.

(Un)accepted Foods – Lectures, discussion and tasting on April 8

Posted on by

Join RUW at the ‘(Un)accepted Foods’ evening and learn more about the potential of insects as food and about eating unconventional food products like horse and goose meat. Find out why responses to such food items can be so strong and how attitudes towards them differ across cultures. And how about challenging your own food habits at the tasting?

Contributions by:

  • Jessica Duncan: Lecturer in Food Cultures and Food Policy at Rural Sociology Group of Wageningen University
  • Arnold van Huis: Author of ‘The insect cookbook’, researcher at the Entomology department (WUR)
  • Rob Hagenouw: Keuken van het Ongewenst Dier (Kitchen of the Unwanted Animal)

Venue: April 8, 19.00-21.00 in the public libary of Wageningen (BBLTHK), free entrance.

For more information see: www.stichtingruw.nl or the Facebook page (Un)accepted food.

Theoretical approaches to the ecologisation of agrifood systems – European Society of Rural Sociology 2014 Summerschool

Posted on by

Transitions towards more sustainable agrifood systems and rural landscapes are at the core of societal demands, technological but also social innovations and renewed public policies at various scales. In rural sociology they are addressed through different theoretical frameworks and the main objective of the ESRS PhD Summer School this year, is to discuss these competing and sometimes articulated frameworks and thereby to help the PhD students to clarify their own theoretical choices and to position them in relation to other theoretical frameworks that are used in rural sociology. For students who are rather at the beginning of their PhD, the aim will be to help them organize their state of the art and clarify their problematisation, while for students who are more advanced, it would rather be a discussion of their results in the light of existing literature and/or possibly the preparation of a future article. All the participants should have an interest in the theoretical frameworks that will be structuring the discussion, i.e. mainly Socio-Ecological Systems/Resilience theories, Food Regime Theory, Transition Theories, Actor Network Theory, and Social Studies of Science and Knowledge. Continue reading →

Food security in an urbanizing society

Posted on by

Professor Han Wiskerke will be participating in a very interesting and innovative course about food security in an urbanizing society. The course is being offered by Wageningen University’s  Centre for Development Innovation and will take place 2 June 2014 until Fri 13 June 2014.

Course objectives

  • understand the basic premises of the metropolitan food cluster, sub-sector and spatial planning approaches , and how these can be integrated to ensure nutritious food to all strata of rural and urban communities;
  • be able to understand and intervene in complex rural-urban planning processes from an integrated, holistic and multi-stakeholder perspective;
  • have strengthened skills to develop and facilitate multi-stakeholder processes.

Target audience

Participants need to have several years of professional work experience in one of the following fields: rural and/or urban planning, local sub-sector, agribusiness cluster development and/or spatial planning, rural/urban livelihoods governance, sustainable development or other relevant areas. Proficiency in English is a must.

For more information, see: https://www.wageningenur.nl/en/show/CDIcourse_Food_security_in_an_urbanizing_society_2014.htm 

Continue reading →