Risky Eating: Shanghai Families’ Strategies to Acquire Safe Food in Everyday Life

Abstract

Resourceful parents and grandparents in Shanghai go a long way in search of safe and healthy food for the children of their families. From an ethnographical perspective, this article delves into the risk of eating in everyday family life in urban China, and it investigates the complexity of navigating the urban food market and trusting advice from Internet sources, mommy groups, friends, and family members in order to avoid often incomprehensible health risks posed by polluted or chemically treated foods. It describes how family caregivers feel a moral obligation of doing their best to handle food risks in everyday life, and how they exchange practical knowledge in private networks. It argues that food risks are tackled with individual strategies aiming towards a feeling of peace of mind (fangxin), and that buying, preparing, and eating safe food is a moral issue within the family.