A Biosemiotic View on Edible Identity

Abstract Dominant perspectives on human interactions with food often emphasise symbolic expression (e.g. dietary ideologies or culinary heritage) and culturally coded sensory responsiveness (e.g. preferences for traditional taste, aroma or texture), treating both as interlinked sites of meaningful interpretation where eaters express agency and construct edible identity (Brulotte & Di Giovine, 2014). A parallel discourse, exemplified by Pearce and Wall (2025), foregrounds how some other edibility features—such as high sugar and salt—can be understood as rerouting the construction of edible identity bypassing the conscious deliberation implied in symbolically and sensorially mediated choice. Bridging these accounts, this paper offers a biosemiotically grounded conception of ‘edible identity’ as the product of integrated semiotic activities embedded in human biological complexity. In line with Kull’s (2009) model of semiotic threshold zones —where symbolic, sensory and cellular domains operate as distinct yet interrelated interpretive strata—and Hendlin’s (2021) proposition that eating drives arise from multi-scalar biosemiotic processes entailing human and microbial actors , it contends that edible identity is constituted through a stratified system of sign-interpretation encompassing the human body and its Umwelt. Here, all involved layers form a continuous but heterogeneous semiotic field, where misalignments—like synthetic additives activating health-adverse gut-microbial responses decoupled from nutritive reality—expose their interdependence and the material stakes of a selfhood enacted through food-related meaning-making. By reframing this mode of identity formation as constituted through distributed, constraint-bound interpretations, the study advances a post-anthropocentric view that decentres conscious intention without discarding it.