While food is essential, its production and consumption have serious environmental consequences. Although many consumers express positive attitudes toward environmental responsibility, sustainable food choices are often more complex than they appear, frequently shaped by inferences and simplified choice strategies, particularly as sustainability outcomes are abstract and uncertain. This dissertation advances the understanding of sustainable food consumption by examining how consumers’ inferences lead to hidden pitfalls, unintended negative outcomes that emerge across different stages of the sustainable food consumption cycle. It focuses on two widely promoted sustainable behaviors: choosing organic food products and reducing food waste, and identifies three distinct inference-based pitfalls. The first pitfall arises at the pre-consumption stage, where consumers incorrectly infer that “organic” is a health label, biasing taste perceptions. The second pitfall occurs post-consumption, where consumers perceive wasting organic food to be less harmful than wasting conventional food, reducing their waste aversion. The third pitfall also occurs post-consumption, showing how, in parenting contexts, food waste may be seen as an act of responsible caregiving. Overall, this dissertation establishes the importance of consumer inference-making in sustainable food consumption and shows how inferences can distort perceptions, choices, and behaviors, undermining sustainability goals.
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