Social and Cultural Pathways to Sustainable Diets: Food Environments, Cooking Practices, Food Identities, and Digital Influences

Social and cultural factors play a pivotal role in shaping pathways toward sustainable diets. Food and cuisine are part of our daily lives, our identities, and our heritage. But, like any other element of culture, they are not static: they evolve, are influenced by external forces, and respond to the changing needs and constraints of different societies.

As food evolution and dietary transitions unfold in an era marked by increased ultra-processed food availability, time scarcity, rising affordability pressures, and digital connectivity, the spaces where food choices are made, homes, institutions, retail settings, and online platforms, have become critical research interfaces. Interdisciplinary food studies and public health research underscore the interaction between structural food environments and the personal, cultural, and social factors influencing everyday eating. While numerous studies have shown that access, promotion, and consumer perceptions, together with social norms, mediate the adoption of healthier and more sustainable eating patterns, persistent challenges and inequalities remain, especially among young adults and during moments of social or life transition, and also among older adults, facing significant changes both in their diet and in relation to the solitude in which they may eat. On the other hand, tourist flows gentrify and "foodify" historic city centers, implying major changes in food distribution and consumption by resident populations.

Recent evidence highlights that cooking self-efficacy and home food preparation act as significant enablers of healthy, sustainable diets, particularly during transitional life stages such as entering university. However, these enablers are unequally distributed and strongly shaped by everyday constraints: limited time for planning, shopping, and cooking, shifting routines, peer influences, and restricted budgets and material resources (including the affordability of ingredients, kitchen equipment, and energy costs). These factors can influence not only dietary quality but also the feasibility of maintaining sustainable food practices over time. In parallel, commensality (the practice of eating together) is increasingly recognized as a powerful social mechanism reinforcing identity, belonging, and healthy behaviors. Yet, commensality can also unveil disparities and social exclusions, pointing to the need for more inclusive approaches in dietary promotion.

Digital food environments and online social spaces have emerged as major arenas for shaping dietary preferences, norms, and practical food skills. The ubiquity of social media platforms and culinary influencers can affect consumer choices and menu construction (what is considered desirable, “healthy,” trendy, affordable, or sustainable), amplifying certain products, cuisines, and food identities through algorithmic visibility, marketing, and peer dynamics. At the same time, these spaces can accelerate the spread of misleading or false nutrition and sustainability information, with potential impacts on beliefs, risk perceptions, and everyday practices. Understanding how to counter misinformation, through media and food literacy, evidence-based communication, trustworthy creator–expert partnerships, and effective public health or platform-level strategies, has therefore become integral to sustainable dietary transitions.

This Research Topic aims to integrate mixed-methods approaches, drawing from both qualitative and quantitative research, alongside participatory and co-design strategies. The objective is to develop actionable insights that can inform policy, education, and community-based initiatives, ultimately fostering more equitable and sustainable dietary transitions.

To gather further insights into the intersections between food environments, social and cultural practices, food heritages and identities, and digital influences, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:
• Social and cultural determinants of sustainable diets and food choices
• Cooking self-efficacy, home food preparation, and dietary transition periods
• Time management, convenience pressures, and the feasibility of home cooking
• Affordability, cost-of-living constraints, and inequalities in sustainable eating
• The role and impact of commensality on health and sociability
• The structure and perception of local, institutional, or digital food environments
• Digital influences: social media, influencers, and online culinary interventions
• Misinformation and trust in digital food/nutrition content; strategies to counter fake information
• Food cultures and heritagization
• Food, culture, heritage, and tourism
• Food transformations related to gentrification and foodification
• Interdisciplinary and mixed-methods approaches to studying sustainable diets
• Policy, education, and community strategies for supporting healthy and sustainable eating

We encourage the submission of original research articles, systematic or scoping reviews, theoretical and methodological papers, brief reports, policy analyses, case studies, and opinion or perspective pieces relevant to the Research Topic.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Community Case Study
• Conceptual Analysis
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Community Case Study
• Conceptual Analysis
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Sustainable diets, Food environments, Commensality, Digital food environments, dietary transitions

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.