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This paper examines the potential of photography as a design thinking method to develop innovative food experiences that improve food well-being.

This paper is a critical review of research using photography to examine the complex physical, emotional, psychological and social relationships individuals have with food at personal and societal levels.

The conceptual legitimacy of photography is well-established in the social sciences but has been missing from design thinking practices. Photography is particularly well suited to understand the highly visual practice of food and to design innovative food experiences.

Practical and ethical issues in the use of photography are considered as a research tool. Future research should examine photography as an integrated tool in the entire design thinking process.

A table of photographic research methods for all stages of design thinking, from empathy to prototyping, is presented. Best practices for the successful implementation and interpretation of photography in food design thinking are discussed.

Photography is a uniquely inclusive and accessible research method for understanding the social problem of food well-being and designing innovative food experiences.

To the best of the authors knowledge, this paper provides the first conceptual foundation for the use of photography in design thinking. The paper identifies novel photographic methods that can be used to understand problems and generate solutions. It provides guidelines to successfully integrate photography in the design of innovative food experiences that improve food well-being.

Food rituals are an ever present part of consumers’ lives that have practical implications for well-being. This paper aims to explore how food and its relationship to pleasure evolve, as women navigate social norms around gender and aging.

Ethnographic data were collected using in-depth interviews and participant observations of members of the Red Hat Society (RHS) across 27 months. This approach provided a more nuanced perspective on how food experiences shape consumption rituals and communal ties over time.

Older women in the RHS eat rebelliously when they break social norms of gender and aging by indulging together in food and drink. Their rituals of rebellious eating have implications on well-being, heightening their experiential pleasure of food and conviviality and forging social support and a sense of community. The dark side of personal indulgence is explored within a larger framework of food well-being.

This study shows how older women challenge social expectations around age and gender through food pleasure rituals. The concept of rebellious eating is introduced to conceptualize how these older women rethink aging and indulgence within a supportive community of consumption and integrate the concepts into their personal narratives.