Cooking up changes: the act of cooking as a tool for facing the challenges of the Anthropocene

Abstract

Cooking encompasses cultural, environmental, social, economic, and political dimensions, as well as composes the activities contained in a food system and promoting dialogues and transformations. This study aims to describe and to analyze everyday elements related to cooking and its relationship with the food system based on the experience of a group of female urban farmers in the east side of the city of São Paulo. Body-map storytelling was used, a creative visual research method, in which, by drawing the participant’s body contours, visual and oral data were produced on the meanings of cooking. Seven women participated in this study, who develop actions related to agriculture and cooking. The generated data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Cooking proved to be a connector from the field to the table, strengthening and being strengthened by the practices of urban and peri-urban farming, and is an interesting tool to promote health, contemplating biopsychosocial well-being in line with issues of social, economic, and environmental sustainability. Understanding this connection enables to support public policies to promote sustainable food systems and facing the challenges of the Anthropocene.