Failures on Brazilian food system: contributions from literary geography to enhance food democracy

Abstract

The need to reformulate food systems is a constant in the debates of Food and Nutrition Policies worldwide. The science of Nutrition, in this scenario, has the opportunity to evaluate its hegemonic approach, linked to the biological paradigm, aiming at a greater political engagement in issues that weaken its food system. This work aimed to demonstrate how the historical and social process of construction of the Brazilian food system is related to current food and nutritional security deficiencies. This is qualitative research, which took as a method perspective the literary geography. The Brazilian territory was divided into seven culinary spots, portions of the territory that form regions for the social study of food. Their corpus consisted of 27 literary works, from 20 Brazilian writers, collected and analyzed with the support of the conceptual dimensions defined in the study: narrative spaces and culinary objects. The misuse of land, the commoditization of food and the indiscriminate supply of industrialized food were listed as the main flaws in the food system analyzed. The Humanities and Social Sciences approach can offer an important contribution to Nutrition in order to play a greater role in food system problems related to socio-cultural aspects.

Keywords:
Food and Nutrition Security; sustainable development; Food and Nutrition Education; sociological factors; qualitative research