This paper discusses concepts, domains, and some interests in constituting Food and Nutrition as a scientific field in Brazil. The theory of social fields crosscutting Bourdieu's thought, combined with Stengers's thoughts about scientific fields, were used to distinguish between food-related domains and those concerned with nutrients and eating. Once the differences among them are recognized, one realizes that eating, nourishing and feeding are inter-related human phenomena; so epistemological plurality is the first requirement for its understanding, considering the interfaces between biological and social dimensions. Consequently, it is essential to recognize the need for closer relations among scientific fields, although this approach is only established in processes involving disputed interests. In this sense, despite the challenges, the link between Food and Nutrition corresponds to a promising and necessary political project from the viewpoint of the interdisciplinarity that the nature of this binomial requires for its understanding as a field of knowledge production and knowledge related to the sociocultural and biological processes that run throughout human life.
Feeding; Science; Knowledge; Nutrition; Research; Health postgraduate programs
