For the past 2 years the Agriculture Council has been researching new insights into consumer attitudes. Food is a very emotional and personal subject that is integrally tied to the fundamental human drives of sustenance, pleasure and family love. Food is both given and taken as an act of love and is often central to family bonding. Food is a tool for self-affirmation, reflecting, for example, what kind of parent someone wants to be. Personal control is increasingly important as the world becomes more complex and people's lives more challenging.
Food is an area where people can exert such control.
Food concerns are increasingly complex, so consumers oversimplify them in absolute terms as either good or bad which leaves no room for compromise. Food Safety on the Web Teleconference , National Satellite videoconference sponsored by Kansas, Wisconsin, and Michigan Extension-September 20, 1996. See e-mail or contact Pat Hammerschmidt. October 8, 1996. Information will be forthcoming.