The Moral Economy of Ready-Made Food

The aim of this paper is to develop and apply a framework to explore how moralities of consumption are constituted in and through markets. Using the case of ready-made foods, this paper argues moral economies are comprised through interactions between micro, meso and macro level processes in the form of instituted systems of provision, state regulation, collective food customs promoted though media, NGOs and lifestyle practitioners, and the everyday reflections of consumers. Building on a theoretical framework developed to understand the moral economy of work and employment (Bolton and Laaser, 2013), this paper explores how markets for ready-made food are incessantly negotiated in the context of moral ideas about cooking, femininity and individual responsibility. It focuses on ‘new’ market innovations of fresh ready-to-cook meal solutions and explores how these products are both a response to moralizing discourses about cooking ‘properly’, as well as an intervention into the market that offers opportunities for new moral identities to be performed. Using data gathered from interviews with food manufacturers and consumers, I advocate for a multi-layered perspective that captures the dynamic interplay between consumers, markets and moralities of consumption

Life cycle environmental impacts of convenience food: Comparison of ready and home-made meals

This paper compares the life cycle environmental impacts of ready-made meals manufactured industrially with meals prepared at home from scratch. A typical roast dinner consisting of chicken meat, vegetables and tomato sauce is considered. The results suggest that the impacts of the home-made meal are lower than for the equivalent ready-made meal. For example, the global warming and human toxicity potentials are up to 35% lower and eutrophication, photochemical smog and ozone layer depletion are up to 3 times lower. The main reasons for this are the avoidance of meal manufacturing, reduced refrigeration and a lower amount of waste in the life cycle of the home-made meal. For the ready-made meal, the lowest impacts are found for the frozen meal prepared from fresh ingredients and heated at home in a microwave. The worst option for most impacts is the frozen ready-made meal with frozen ingredients that is heated in an electric oven. For the same cooking method, chilled ready-made meals have higher impacts than the frozen. The type of refrigerant used in the supply chain influences the impacts, particularly global warming and ozone layer depletion. The contribution of packaging is important for some impacts, including global warming, fossil fuel depletion and human toxicity. The main hotspots for both types of meal are the ingredients, waste and cooking method chosen by the consumer. Using organic instead of conventional ingredients leads to higher impacts. Sourcing chicken and tomatoes from Brazil and Spain, respectively, reduces environmental impacts of the meals compared to sourcing them from the UK, despite the long-distance transport. The findings of the study are used to make recommendations to producers, retailers and consumers on reducing the environmental impacts from food production and consumption.The authors are grateful to RCUK (grant no. EP/K011820) and BECAS Chile for sponsoring this research

Lawson criterion for ignition exceeded in an inertial fusion experiment

For more than half a century, researchers around the world have been engaged in attempts to achieve fusion ignition as a proof of principle of various fusion concepts. Following the Lawson criterion, an ignited plasma is one where the fusion heating power is high enough to overcome all the physical processes that cool the fusion plasma, creating a positive thermodynamic feedback loop with rapidly increasing temperature. In inertially confined fusion, ignition is a state where the fusion plasma can begin "burn propagation" into surrounding cold fuel, enabling the possibility of high energy gain. While "scientific breakeven" (i.e., unity target gain) has not yet been achieved (here target gain is 0.72, 1.37 MJ of fusion for 1.92 MJ of laser energy), this Letter reports the first controlled fusion experiment, using laser indirect drive, on the National Ignition Facility to produce capsule gain (here 5.8) and reach ignition by nine different formulations of the Lawson criterion

IN THE LIGHT OF GLOBAL AND LOCAL NEEDS

Sustainable Building is a global issue. The life cycle of building influences the life cycles of the whole planet dramatically. Some of the methods concerning Environmentally-Sound and Healthy Building, developed and used in The Netherlands will be presented and discussed in the perspective of world wide effects. Awareness about and development of those methods and approaches are actually yet not at their end. The scientific and technical complexity of the theme and the fact that the objectives are items of commercial and political interests make Sustainable Building a delicate problem. However, after having seen how complicated it is to contribute to a Sustainable Development substantially, we will conclude with some Rules of Thumb and Innovativ

Road haulage

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Contract cleaning 1995 market report

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Autoparts

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