Consider food.  What it is? At its most basic, it is something we collect and consume to survive.  It can be very simple ? a grain, a tuber, or an animal.  Often, however, food is quite complex.  One reason for this complexity is that food is an important part of culture.  Another reason is that the production of food includes different processes: planting and harvesting, storage, distribution, preparation and disposal.  As production expands - from providing for the household to providing for central markets and again to exporting to an international market - safety issues and complexity also expand.  At each step, new issues may emerge; issues associated with both the safety of the production process and of the final product.  In addition, at each link there are potentially new actors who may both affect and be affected by these processes and their products; new actors with potentially different interests.  Underlying any definition of food then are particular actors' interests in framing just what 'food' is and is not and delineating how it can and should be used.  These interests can include new ways of using food, a new technology used in its production or other interests entirely - such as interest in the environment.  Food, then, is not merely an objective, static thing, defined and used in the same way by all consumers.  If it were, regulation of it would be relatively straight-forward.  Instead, food and food regulation have the potential to change and to awaken strong feelings and emotions in producers, consumers and other stakeholders.  Food, then, is not only complex, it is also value-laden.