Consumption

A food system includes all the processes and infrastructure involved in feeding a population, as depicted in the sectors below. The Food System Wheel is Homegrown Hillsborough’s depiction of the interconnected aspects that influence nutrition, food, health, community development, and agriculture.

Consumption is how people prepare and eat food which shapes health and culture.

Consumption:
Key Concepts

  • Nutrition is the science of how the body uses the components of food to grow, develop, and work properly.

  • Food that is responsive to an individual’s ethnicity, values, ethical norms, language needs, religion, and individual differences.

  • The physical, social, economic, cultural, and political factors that impact the accessibility, availability, and adequacy of food within a community or region. This term is used similarly to “food landscape.”

    Social sustainability: The system has broad-based benefits for society

    Environmental sustainability: The system has a positive or neutral impact on the natural environment.

    Sustainable food systems require integrated actions from multiple stakeholders at local, national, regional, and global levels. These actions should take place across multiple fronts, including: agriculture, trade, policy, health, environment, gender norms, education, and transport and infrastructure.

  • Seasonal eating means eating food during the time of year it naturally grows in your region. Out-of-season foods travel 1,500 miles or more to get to you. Nutrients in foods can break down over time, so the longer between harvest and consumption, the fewer nutrients may be in the food.

  • Areas where socially disadvantaged individuals face barriers to accessing essential nutrients. Also known as LILA (low-income, low-access) zones. Low-income is defined by the poverty rate and median family income of a tract. Low-access means a significant number or share of the population in the tract had limited access to a food store. This term is used similarly to “food desert.”

  • A program in which patients have been prescribed a food prescription, or Food Rx, by a healthcare provider. Locally, in collaboration with local hospitals and clinics, Feeding Tampa Bay's Food Rx program brings nutrient-rich foods to food-insecure patients directly at discharge or at the end of an appointment—free. Food Rx breaks the barrier to a healthy diet by making nutritious, whole foods more accessible. Access to healthy foods can improve a person’s lifestyle, as well as certain health conditions.