Author

Erin C. Black

Date of Completion

5-31-2021

Document Type

Open Access Capstone

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

First Advisor

Robert Ricketts

Second Advisor

Jeremy Szteiter

Abstract

This paper attempts to demonstrate that the conventionally scientific approach to food is insufficient and provide an alternative pathway to approach the subject of nutrition with an additional layer of philosophical thought for an improved result. This paper attempts to lay the early groundwork for an expanded model, which necessarily includes a philosophical angle from which to work. This proposal is a model that will enable considerations about nutrition more broadly, in ways that are critical in thinking and creative in process towards exploring options for arriving at ultimately best practices with best outcomes in mind. The examination of practices, policies, and our beliefs about food, can reveal information to shift thinking and empower individuals and groups to address the dietary problems we continue to face and will begin to face with the evolution of the food industry, on a planet with limited resources and a growing population with increased nutritional needs. This is not a prescriptive model. The aim is to help shift and shape thinking about thinking, with the intent to consider alternatives from a critical and creative position, in order establish superior food philosophy and approach when it comes to matters of nutrition and nourishment as a global subject. Readers might then contemplate what might be thought of as best practices in each arena related to nutrition and nourishment with the hopes that it will ultimately lead to a thriving state of existence for individuals, and then in their sphere of influence. The approach is rather epistemic in that I seek to bring people to a place where they can begin to digest the data in context, in synthesis, and towards what is the best possible option, given the entire picture, as real knowledge in justified true belief.

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