youtu.be/QOLTytiWFR0 The metaphysics of food is always bound up with epistemology: different conceptions of food are connected to our different beliefs about it. Obviously, what one thinks food is depends upon how one perceives and judges it. This claim applies to any object and to the metaphysics-epistemology relationship in general. But food epistemology is somewhat different. It is not only concerned with typical epistemic questions about knowledge, justification, and truth because food is not merely an object of experience. It is also an object of consumption. We don’t just perceive it; we also prepare it and eat it. We have different interests, rely on different sources of knowledge, and justify our beliefs differently. We perceive food as something that might taste good, make us sick, have symbolic significance, spoil unless refrigerated, and spark other various concerns that are unique to food perception. In addition to typical epistemological questions concerning the reasons and conditions that warrant beliefs, food epistemology is also about risk and trust, practical reason, and the effects of physiology and psychology on perception.