Balancing pleasure and purpose: How consumers navigate the hedonic and eudaimonic dimensions of food consumption

Many people would argue that food plays a major role in their well-being. It is recognized that food experiences are embedded in a particular food culture and are shaped by that culture's history, social norms, values and beliefs. Eating, a multi-day act, plays an important role in achieving a good life and food-related well-being (Diener et al., 2003; Ares et al., 2016). Based on the Aristotelian philosophy of happiness, recent research considers two dimensions of wellbeing (Stark et al., 2018; Kashdan et al., 2018). The hedonic dimension focuses on the achievement of happiness and pleasure, and the eudaimonic dimension emphasizes meaning and self-realization (Ryan & Deci, 2001). The hedonic dimension of food has been the main focus of many researches due to its impact on health and the effectiveness of public health claims. A hedonic product provides an affective, multisensory, emotional experience (Hirschman & Holbrook, 1982) leading to enjoyment and pleasure (Dhar & Wertenbroch, 2000). Research has provided insights into how food consumption can lead to pleasure. Cornila & Chandon (2016a) have identified visceral pleasure and epicurean pleasure and consider that reducing the visceral one could contribute to healthy eating, Batat et al. (2019) consider a more holistic view of the experiential pleasure of food and have proposed that it could help shift consumer behavior towards well-being. The eudaimonic dimension of food has received less attention from researchers and a full understanding of the eudaimonic dimension of food experience is still little explored due to the lack of an agreed general theory, the usefulness of distinguishing it from the hedonic dimension and the difficulty of measuring it (Mugel et al., 2019, Kashdan et al., 2008). Based on the hedonic and eudaimonic dimensions of food well-being, we highlight this major tension that can arise in food choices. This paper analyses different ways in which consumers can manage pleasure and the hedonic dimension of food consumption, while maintaining the eudaimonic dimension of food in relation to individual fulfilment, health and sustainability. We conducted a QCA analysis of the discourse of 34 consumers of traditional foods that carry pleasure, health and ethical dimensions. Results showed that in a holistic food consumption experience, the hedonic and eudaimonic dimensions of food well-being were distinct and that consumers might have been motivated by one, both, or neither. Based on these results, we highlight different ways in which consumers can reduce the tension between pleasure and ethics.