Risk Preferences and Food Consumption

This article examines some of the risks intrinsic to food and discusses how those risks are perceived, or misperceived, by both consumers and the experts. It then discusses risk preferences and examines the literature that attempts to connect those preferences to food consumption choices. It also deals with constructed preferences-the idea that individuals might not have stable, well-defined preferences but instead that their preferences are constructed as needed and readily influenced by characteristics of the decision environment. Furthermore, the insights from that literature provide useful guidance for researchers studying food consumption choices and the inclusion of measured risk preferences improves model performance in the sense of painting a better picture of how consumers respond to food risk.