The Dialectic of Food Swamps and Clean Food

Abstract

Applying an ecological rhetorical approach, this article examines the online circulation of arguments about food choice in two seemingly disparate sites: clean, medicinal food rhetoric and the rhetoric of “food swamps.” Studying snack food conglomerate Mondelez International’s “Mindful Snacking” campaign in juxtaposition with clean eating brand Sakara Life’s “made-for-Instagram” marketing materials demonstrates how clean, medicinal food texts emerge as acts of communicative resistance to the normalization of fast and processed food, yet slip back into the same meritocratic logic emphasizing individual responsibility and ultimately reproduce the ideological conditions that maintain inequitable access to healthy food. This article concludes with suggestions for disrupting and transforming the pervasive individualizing frameworks of food choice that locate health and diet concerns in the individual as opposed to the wider political, economic, and environmental context.