Food is also used to promote family unity when members eat together, to
provide hospitality, as a gift, as an important part in holidays and celebrations,
to show status or prestige and to express feelings or emotions. Furthermore,
it is used as a reward or a punishment or as a political tool in protests and
hunger strikes. It is also used as subject of creative expression by cooks and
advertisers to influence food choices (Asp, 1999). It is apparent that foods
possess certain attributes and modern consumers do not buy just food, rather
it these attributes that they purchase. Therefore, modern food consumption
is about consumption of these characteristics. Many authors have proposed
different classifications of those attributes or characteristics. Our classification
utilizes and adds to those listed by several authors such as Fischer (2005)
and Mitchell (2004).