Rafi Grosglik

As one of the industry leaders in the field of alternative proteins, Israel provides an interesting and important test case for examining explicit and implicit agendas in the professional and public debate regarding sustainable pathways for alternative proteins. Based on in-depth interviews with key stakeholders in the Israeli food-tech ecosystem and analysis of two recent reports (The Good Food Institute-Israel’s report on the State of Protein Alternative Innovation and the Israel Innovation Authority report), we elucidate and highlight institutional, socio-cultural, socio-technological, and nutritional aspects inherent to the debate on meat substitutes. Looking at the socially constructed classification of meat substitutes in Israel, we explore the regulatory challenges and public discourses and scrutinize sustainability considerations in the context of meat substitutes. Finally, we advocate for diverse solutions to address the multifaceted issues intertwined with meat substitutes, emphasizing the need for more comprehensive research to understand the intricate interplay among distinct categories of meat alternatives.

Microbiome science has highlighted human and microbial interdependency, offering a radical epistemic shift from the individualistic view of the human body and self. Research has accordingly offered to see humans as ‘homo-microbis’ – complex biomolecular networks composed of humans and their associated microbes. While social scientists have begun to address microbiome science, the proliferation and commodification of the homo-microbial episteme have largely been overlooked. Based on an ethnographic account of a research project that offered microbiome-based personalised nutrition and the successful start-up that emerged from it, this article examines the emergence, proliferation, and commodification of the homo-microbial body. We show that this episteme necessarily depends on opaque machine learning algorithms; that the microbiome is paradoxically seen as a data-driven individuating marker; and that homo-microbis is, in fact, also a homo-algorithmicus – a being that can only access i...

Microbiome science has highlighted human and microbial interdependency, offering a radical epistemic shift from the individualistic view of the human body and self. Research has accordingly offered to see humans as 'homo-microbis'-complex biomolecular networks composed of humans and their associated microbes. While social scientists have begun to address microbiome science, the proliferation and commodification of the homo-microbial episteme have largely been overlooked. Based on an ethnographic account of a research project that offered microbiomebased personalised nutrition and the successful start-up that emerged from it, this article examines the emergence, proliferation, and commodification of the homo-microbial body. We show that this episteme necessarily depends on opaque machine learning algorithms; that the microbiome is paradoxically seen as a data-driven individuating marker; and that homo-microbis is, in fact, also a homo-algorithmicus-a being that can only access its non-human sub-parts by blindly following opaque algorithmic recommendations in an app.

In settler colonial settings, agriculture is a means of reclaiming territorial sovereignty and indigenous identity. Turning attention to the Jewish settlers in the West Bank and their multiple uses and abuses of organic farming, this article explores epistemic and political spatial operations on the colonial frontier. Applying a relational conceptualization of three spatial modalities—soil, territory, and land—we explore the ways in which these modalities serve as political apparatuses: Soil designates the romantic perception of cultivable space, territory is concerned with borders and political sovereignty, and land is seen as a space of economic value and as a means of production. While agriculture is a well-known instrument of expansion and dispossession, organic farming contributes to the colonial operation by binding together affective attachment to the place, and new economic singularity in relation to environmental and ethical claims. We argue that organic farming practices c...

Globalizing Organic focuses on the globalization of a culture of “eating for change” and the ways in which local meanings attached to the production of foods embed ecological and social values. Rafi Grosglik examines how organic agriculture was integrated in Israel—a state in which agriculture was a key mechanism in promoting Jewish nationalism and in time has become highly mechanized and technologically sophisticated. He explores how organic food, which signifies environmental protection and social equity, has been realized in a country where environmental issues are perceived as less pressing compared to inner political conflicts, the Israeli-Arab conflict, and recurrent wars. Based on more than a decade of ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and analysis of historical documents and media, Grosglik traces how alternative food movements are affected by global and local trends. He covers a wide range of topics, including the ethos of halutzim (“pioneers,” Zionist ideological farmers and workers), the utopian visions of the Israeli kibbutz, indigeneity that is claimed both by Palestinians and Jewish settlers in the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank, biblical meanings that have been ascribed to environmental and countercultural ideas, the Americanization of Israeli society, and its neoliberalized economy.

In settler colonial settings, agriculture is a means of reclaiming territorial sovereignty and indigenous identity. Turning attention to the Jewish settlers in the West Bank and their multiple uses and abuses of organic farming, this article explores epistemic and political spatial operations on the colonial frontier. Applying a relational conceptualization of three spatial modalities—soil, territory, and land—we explore the ways in which these modalities serve as political apparatuses: Soil designates the romantic perception of cultivable space, territory is concerned with borders and political sovereignty, and land is seen as a space of economic value and as a means of production. While agriculture is a well-known instrument of expansion and dispossession, organic farming contributes to the colonial operation by binding together affective attachment to the place, and new economic singularity in relation to environmental and ethical claims. We argue that organic farming practices c...

Organic food consumption is associated with “citizen-consumer” practice, which is an act of promoting different aspects of social and ecological responsibility and the integration of ethical considerations in daily practices such as eating. This article analyzes aspects of organic food consumption in Israel and the symbolic meanings given to it by its consumers. The study shows how practices attributed to ethical eating culture are used in identity construction, social status manifestation, and as a means to demonstrate openness to global cultural trends. Organic food consumption is carried out as part of a symbolic use of ethical values and its adaptation to the local Israeli cultural context. In addition, organic food consumption patterns are revealed as fitting the cultural logic of globalization, which spread in the last decades in Israel. Analysis of the socio-cultural aspects related to organic food consumption points to the polysemy embodied in the term citizen-consumer and s...

Abstract This article uses Chinese food as a prism to analyze the process of globalization in Israeli culture since the 1970s. We describe three distinct eras in the evolution of culinary globalization within Israel: first, the appearance of a variety of foods and tastes perceived as representations of “other” nations; second, the commodification of these foods and tastes and their distribution via fast-food chains as mass consumption items (i.e. “McDonaldization”); and third, the creation of a cosmopolitan eating experience. The article also posits that the common perception of globalization in Israel as solely “Americanization” is flawed, as globalization also takes the form of an ethnic-national and a hybrid-cosmopolitan representation. Finally, our third argument indicates that Chinese food serves as a symbolic marker in the sphere of social stratification. In each of its mutations, Chinese food has operated as a token of status distinction. In the first era, Chinese food served to differentiate the emergent affluent class; in the second, it became inexpensive and commonplace, and hence lost its differentiating quality; and in its third, Chinese food reacquired upper-class associations when it became identified with fine cosmopolitan taste.

Le houmous est un mets du Moyen-Orient de consommation courante en Israel. Depuis plusieurs dizaines d’annees, les Israeliens se le sont approprie et en ont fait un symbole de leur culture et un plat national. Il represente l’enracinement, le terroir, la simplicite et, surtout, le fait meme d’etre Israelien : l’» israelite ». Le houmous bio, une variante plus recente, nait de la rencontre entre des pratiques locales et des pratiques transnationales de consommation ethique. Ainsi revisite, ce mets devient l’expression d’un cosmopolitisme porteur de statut social.

Although there is burgeoning research on the impact of therapeutic culture in the construction of the individual Self, the ways in which emotional discourse and therapeutic style shape the collective Self have been overlooked. Focusing on the popular reality-television cooking show MasterChef Israel, this article explores the emergence of gastro-emotivism – an interlacing of food with emotions and therapy and a materialization of emotions in the form of food. In MasterChef Israel, gastro-emotivism is used to articulate emotional-therapeutic selves as well as collective belongings and social categories. While recent literature understood the appearance of therapeutic culture in popular media as geared to reshape the individual neoliberal Self, we suggest that gastro-emotivism indicates the expansion of the emotional therapeutic framework in the depiction and construction of collective identities and identifications. We elaborate on the global phenomena of gastro-emotivism and explain...

Le houmous est un mets du Moyen-Orient de consommation courante en Israel. Depuis plusieurs dizaines d’annees, les Israeliens se le sont approprie et en ont fait un symbole de leur culture et un plat national. Il represente l’enracinement, le terroir, la simplicite et, surtout, le fait meme d’etre Israelien : l’« israelite ». Le houmous bio, une variante plus recente, nait de la rencontre entre des pratiques locales et des pratiques transnationales de consommation ethique. Ainsi revisite, ce mets devient l’expression d’un cosmopolitisme porteur de statut social.

Hummus is an ancient traditional dish in Middle Eastern Cultures. In Israel it is one of the most common foods, appropriated as an icon of Israeli culture and nationality. Today, hummus is served in Israel in many restaurants, and is even distributed as a commercially packaged spread sold in supermarkets. Organic hummus – a recent version of the dish – is influenced by global trends of ethical and reflexive food consumption. Organic food is conceived as the 'spearhead' opposing the consequences of globalization. It is customary to view it as representing locality, health, ecology and social justice. But it also embodies representations of globalism and westernism, mainly because of its integration in the global industrial system and its origin among the post-materialistic-social elite in western countries. This article deals with the encounter of the global and the local as embodied in organic hummus in Israel. Looking at the production, distribution, and consumption of th...

Organic food consumption is associated with “citizen-consumer” practice, which is an act of promoting different aspects of social and ecological responsibility and the integration of ethical considerations in daily practices such as eating. This article analyzes aspects of organic food consumption in Israel and the symbolic meanings given to it by its consumers. The study shows how practices attributed to ethical eating culture are used in identity construction, social status manifestation, and as a means to demonstrate openness to global cultural trends. Organic food consumption is carried out as part of a symbolic use of ethical values and its adaptation to the local Israeli cultural context. In addition, organic food consumption patterns are revealed as fitting the cultural logic of globalization, which spread in the last decades in Israel. Analysis of the socio-cultural aspects related to organic food consumption points to the polysemy embodied in the term citizen-consumer and s...

This article aims to describe and theorize the role of food television in cultivating popular understandings of the relationship between food and race. Although there is burgeoning research on representations of food and identity, scholars have devoted much less attention to representations of race in food-related television programming. This article highlights the necessity of doing so through a comparative examination of shows that aim to expose viewers to racial and ethnic communities through their foodways. We ask to what extent these shows deliver contact across racial difference in hierarchical and egalitarian ways. We found that these shows convey manifestations of “eating with the Other” by providing viewers with a warm and respectful entrée into the everyday realities of racial, ethnic, and immigrant communities. Simultaneously, the shows embody bell hooks’s notion of “eating the Other,” as they commodify the experiences of marginalized communities for the vicarious pleasures of their viewers, and gloss over larger social, political, and economic inequalities. This article offers insights into the ways in which contemporary food television is dealing with issues of ethno-racial differences and inequalities, and discusses the potential of this medium to act as a form of critical intervention.

Although there is burgeoning research on the impact of therapeutic culture in the construction of the individual Self, the ways in which emotional discourse and therapeutic style shape the collective Self have been overlooked. Focusing on the popular reality-television cooking show MasterChef Israel, this article explores the emergence of gastro-emotivism – an interlacing of food with emotions and therapy and a materialization of emotions in the form of food. In MasterChef Israel, gastro-emotivism is used to articulate emotional-therapeutic selves as well as collective belongings and social categories. While recent literature understood the appearance of therapeutic culture in popular media as geared to reshape the individual neoliberal Self, we suggest that gastro-emotivism indicates the expansion of the emotional therapeutic framework in the depiction and construction of collective identities and identifications. We elaborate on the global phenomena of gastro-emotivism and explain its particular Israeli appearance. Emerging from this account is the proliferation of emotional-therapeutic discourse in the Israeli public sphere and its predominance in the ways in which Israelis ‘cook, taste and feel’ their collective affiliations.

Hummus is an ancient traditional dish in Middle Eastern Cultures. In Israel it is one of the most common
foods, appropriated as an icon of Israeli culture and nationality. Today, hummus is served in Israel in many
restaurants, and is even distributed as a commercially packaged spread sold in supermarkets. Organic
hummus – a recent version of the dish – is influenced by global trends of ethical and reflexive food
consumption. Organic food is conceived as the spearhead opposing the consequences of globalization. It
is customary to view it as representing locality, health, ecology and social justice. But it also embodies
representations of globalism and Westernism, mainly because of its integration in the global industrial
system and its origin among the post-materialistic-social elite in western countries. This article deals with
the encounter of the global and the local as embodied in organic hummus in Israel. Looking at the
production, distribution, and consumption of this dish uncovers social and political layers embedded in it. I
will argue that the global socio-economic conditions and ideas embedded in the concept of organic
attached to hummus are the ones which allow – paradoxically – the imagined re-localization of the dish.
Organic hummus in Israel is a dish steeped in paradoxical aspects, and therefore characterized by
culinary-ideological-dissonance. Hummus is a dish that was perceived as representing rootedness,
earthiness, and local simplicity, but nowadays, in its organic version, it wears an economic and symbolic
framework of global values used by the Israeli westernizing elite to demonstrate a widespread environmental
cosmopolitan identity.

Organic food consumption is associated with ''citizen-consumer'' practice, which is an act of promoting different aspects of social and ecological responsibility and the integration of ethical considerations in daily practices such as eating. This article analyzes aspects of organic food consumption in Israel and the symbolic meanings given to it by its consumers. The study shows how practices attributed to ethical eating culture are used in identity construction, social status manifestation, and as a means to demonstrate openness to global cultural trends. Organic food consumption is carried out as part of a symbolic use of ethical values and its adaptation to the local Israeli cultural context. In addition, organic food consumption patterns are revealed as fitting the cultural logic of globalization, which spread in the last decades in Israel. Analysis of the socio-cultural aspects related to organic food consumption points to the polysemy embodied in the term citizen-consumer and shows how the actual implementation of this term in Israel is based on the assimilation of cosmopolitan meanings.

Globalizing Organic focuses on the globalization of a culture of “eating for change” and the ways in which local meanings attached to the production of foods embed ecological and social values. Rafi Grosglik examines how organic agriculture was integrated in Israel—a state in which agriculture was a key mechanism in promoting Jewish nationalism and in time has become highly mechanized and technologically sophisticated. He explores how organic food, which signifies environmental protection and social equity, has been realized in a country where environmental issues are perceived as less pressing compared to inner political conflicts, the Israeli-Arab conflict, and recurrent wars. Based on more than a decade of ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and analysis of historical documents and media, Grosglik traces how alternative food movements are affected by global and local trends. He covers a wide range of topics, including the ethos of halutzim (“pioneers,” Zionist ideological farmers and workers), the utopian visions of the Israeli kibbutz, indigeneity that is claimed both by Palestinians and Jewish settlers in the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank, biblical meanings that have been ascribed to environmental and countercultural ideas, the Americanization of Israeli society, and its neoliberalized economy.