Sustainable eating in the “new normal” Italy: ecological food habitus between biospheric values and de-globalizing gastronationalism

This article presents the results of a survey on sustainable food consumption in Italy during COVID-19 times. The study examines the changes triggered by the pandemic, both in sustainable food practises and in consumers' value-based priorities. The goal is to identify the structuring of an ecological dietary habitus and even a culinary ethos as attention is paid to the reflexive, axiological dimensions of emerging eating habits. The complexity of the phenomenon has suggested a multi-paradigmatic research approach that accounts for the role of human agency in restructuring eating practises in transitional times. The results highlight an emerging nonlinear axiology in which biospheric universalism ambiguously coexists with the lionizing of locavorism and the glorification of food origins, and the direct provision of local food gains prominence despite the increasing mediatization of food choices. A deglobalizing eating style is emerging, where ecological instantiations seem to indulge culinary nationalism and conservative communitarianism. One of the challenges of the "new normal" will be to endow these dispositions with the axiological coherence of an appropriate ecological culinary ethos, as well as to create the conditions for younger generations to prioritize forward-looking ecological values over conservative gastronationalism to promote the sustainable regeneration of food systems.