Reforming food: How trans fats entered and exited the American food system.

摘要

How do corporations decide that the technologies they use are dangerous and must be replaced? Based on interviews, archival research and policy analysis, this dissertation explains how food companies began using trans fats, but later replaced those oils with alternative technologies. Using analytical approaches from actor-network theory, I detail how industries' interests shift, such that firms become enrolled in changing their products. Activists, scientists and regulators participate in shifting industry interests. But material technologies substantially shape how firms produce, meaning that industry supply chains must actively and collaboratively assemble the technological means to modify products.;First, I show that corporations may respond positively to activists' campaigns when they can assemble the physical capacity to reformulate products. Activists and scientists in the 1980s decried manufacturers' use of saturated fat, and promoted trans fats as healthier. Firms could respond positively because oils containing trans fats were not only available, but also offered technical advantages in manufacturing. Second, scientific claims can shift industry interests, especially when industry actors participate in producing those claims. Trade associations funded a USDA study indicating trans fats were probably more harmful than saturated fats, precipitating industry efforts to develop alternative oils. Third, manufacturers may favor regulation that lets them frame reformulated products as improved. Industry sought federal labeling that would clearly indicate that trans fats had been replaced. Fourth, industry actors convince each other to assemble alternative technologies. Some manufacturers committed themselves to reformulation early, helping trade associations enroll crops, farmers, processors, and suppliers into the trans fat replacement project. Suppliers commercialized alternatives, convincing hesitant manufacturers about whether and how to reformulate. Manufacturers and suppliers together reworked thousands of products so trans fat-free versions would look, taste, and feel exactly like the originals.;The dissertation illuminates instances of both change and obduracy by showing that industry actors do not always dominate other institutions, but nor do they passively accede to external pressures. Firms' interests shift iteratively through interaction with activists, scientists, regulators, other businesses and material technologies. Firms may believe studies they sponsor and embrace regulation if they can replace problematic technologies while preserving products' incumbent qualities.