SPINNING PLATES:EXPLORING INTERLINKAGES BETWEEN FOOD INSECURITY AND FOOD LITERACY

The food insecure are often labelled as lacking the functional skills and knowledge promoted as a route out of food insecurity, both in the press and in parliament (Hansard, 2023). Food literacy* interventions purport to offer a means to addressing inequalities (Coveney et al., 2012, Dimbleby et al, 2021). The extent to which these interventions can be construed as effective at delivering impact for those accessing is questioned (Bocquier et al, 2015; Davison, Gondara, & Kaplan, 2017; Palumbo et al., 2019; Terragni et al, 2020). This working paper adopts emic -etic approaches, conducted nationally, with a stratified research sample that addresses two questions. Firstly, it analyses the impact of the incidence of food insecurity on food literacy in the case of the UK and secondly, it investigates the wider role of food intervention programmes within the UK and their effectiveness. The notion of ‘can you cook’ cannot be answered with ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Initial findings uncover potential misinterpretation of the imperative for skills enhancement, challenges around the dissemination of empirically sound nutritional information, and an increased need for contextual understanding. This is inferred around how cooking is valued, by whom, and what cooking may be considered to be. However, it is also noted that where food insecurity limits the opportunity to leverage less tangible environmental factors associated with food literacy, extended interventions offer benefits beyond the provision of emergency food and ‘education’. *The food literacy framework for action (Cullen et al., 2015) shows food literacy as the juncture where community food security and individual food skills intertwine and has been described scaffolding that empowers, protects, and strengthens (Vidgen & Gallegos, 2014).