The confidence in food in modern societies

Abstract

The main goal of this article is to demonstrate the link between the widely experienced risk related to food in Western societies and, at the same time, a broad confidence in the various players and institutions of food consumption (government, industry, distributors, experts, etc.). Thereafter, the article tries to answer the question: how is confidence in food generated in modern societies? Despite the eternal fear concerning human food, the constant increase of new products unknown to one’s own culture and recurrent food crises, the consumer confides and continuously recovers confidence, which means that although the sensation of risk increases, there is some general confidence. Therefore, the intention is to reflect on the characteristics of this confidence process, and especially about the process of recovering it.