Human-Food Interaction

Food is not only fundamental to our existence, its consumption, handling or even the mere sight of its also brings us immense joy. Over the years, technology has played a crucial part in supporting and enriching food-related practices, beginning from how we grow, to how we cook, eat and dispose of food. All these practices have a significant impact not only on individuals but also on the surrounding ecologies and infrastructures, often discussed under the umbrella term of Human-Food Interaction (HFI). This article aims to offer the reader an overview of the existing research in this space and to guide further its exploration. We illustrate how HFI builds on recent trends within HCI. We position this growth across four phases of HFI, namely, Growing, Cooking, Eating and Disposal. We categorize and disseminate the existing works across each of these phases to reveal a rich design space and to highlight the underexplored areas that interaction designers might find intriguing to investigate. Using the design space, we articulate a set of opportunities that emphasize particular features the technology, especially hardware, has yet to offer to drive the human-food interaction field forward. We highlight the design space for designing novel interactions with technologies by taking motivation from traditional food practices related to cooking and eating food. Finally, we introduce Human Food Practices (HFP) an emerging field of investigation that concerns itself with the formation and transformation of practices as they are enacted within the dynamics, motivations and perceptions of societal norms associated with food.