Browsing by Author "Sassi, Sara"

Western culture and person-centered lifestyle has become more popular and can be seen to lead to many environmental problems. The intensification of food production has increased the amount of greenhouse gas emissions and harmfully effected on function of the whole ecosystem. In order to control the climate change, the emissions of agriculture and food production must be reduced. Due to ecological, ethical and health reasons, it is recommended to reduce meat consumption. Alternative protein sources are supporting the change towards sustainable consumption. This thesis discusses the visions of future food among working-age consumers. The aim of the thesis is to investigate, how the food habits are considered to change during the next 10 years time and how the climate change would affect on both food production and availability of food. The research method was qualitative. The data was collected with interviews which included structured and thematic forms. A total of eleven working-age inhabitants in Helsinki metropolitan area were asked to evaluate arguments given and explain their opinions during open discussion. The data was analyzed by using content analysis and thematic methods. According to the results, food habits were considered to change especially in consumption of protein sources. Due to environmental and health reasons, consumption of red meat was seen to reduce in near future. Beef and pork were considered to be replaced in diets with poultry, fish, plant-based proteins, game and edible insects. Also the amounts of food innovations similar to artificial meat were seen to increase. The attitudes and habits related to food choice were considered to depend on consumer’s region, age and gender. Younger generations were seen as experimental and more open for the change of food culture.