ABOUT

EATWELL is a radically interdisciplinary research project that examines food systems in Bhutan in their entanglements with culture, society, environment, health, and nutrition.

 

We develop an integrated approach to food systems since our health depends on the health of the food and the environment; an approach in line with the concepts of Planetary Health and One Health, yet enriched by culture-sensitivity in the notion of more-than-human health.

 

We integrate ethnographic and nutritional methods to map food systems across five different locations as they unfold throughout daily life, affected by cultural, cosmological and environmental aspects and affecting nutritional intake and status of people eating from that food system. In this way we can better understand the intricate and complex interplay between culture, environment, and nutrition.

 

The comparative set-up enables us to discern partial connections between the five different (provisional) sites: Bumthang, Punakha-Gaza valley, Trashi Yangtse, Samdrup Jongkhar, and the capital Thimpu.

 

This project aims to enrich the sustainable-food-systems-for-health agenda by engaging it in a conversation with Bhutanese cultural perspectives and praxis, to ultimately develop culture-sensitive approaches to food systems and nutritional health as replicated and adapted in different contexts.