Food Safety Education Needs of High-School Students: Leftovers, Lunches, and Microwaves

A Structural Equation Model Demonstrating the Relationship between Food Safety Background, Knowledge, Attitudes and Behaviour among Swedish Students

Traditionally, food safety knowledge has been seen as a factor in improving food safety behaviour. However, the relationship between knowledge and behavior is complex. The aim of the present study was to investigate self-reported data from 408 university students regarding food safety background, knowledge, attitudes, and behaviour using Structural Equation Model (SEM) to examine the influence of different factors on food safety behaviour. The SEM was applied to four factors derived from the data: Background, Knowledge, Attitude and Behaviour. The novelty of this current investigation is the inclusion of the Background factor (genus; experience of cooking and handling different food items; experience of a food safety education course; the foremost sources of food safety knowledge). The factors were constructed from variables with sufficient factor loadings and set up in a predetermined structure confirmed to be valid in previous studies. The results, demonstrated as regression coefficients between factors, confirm that the Background factor strongly influenced Knowledge (0.842). The Knowledge factor, in turn, strongly affected Attitude (0.605), while it did not directly affect Behaviour (0.301) in the same way as Attitude. Attitude had a stronger influence on Behaviour (0.438) than Knowledge. Thus, the Attitude factor seemed to play a mediating role between Knowledge and Behaviour. This indicates that students´ attitudes towards the importance of food safety may have an impact on their food safety behavior, which should have implications for the development of food safety education. This warrants further investigation and practical development.

Consumer Attitudes towards Food Preservation Methods

The development and scope of using various food preservation methods depends on the level of consumers’ acceptance. Despite their advantages, in the case of negative attitudes, producers may limit their use if it determines the level of sales. The aim of this study was to evaluate the perception of seven different food processing methods and to identify influencing factors, such as education as well as living area and, at the same time, to consider whether consumers verify this type of information on the labels. Additionally, the study included the possibility of influencing consumer attitudes by using alternative names for preservation methods, on the example of microwave treatment. The results showed that conventional heat treatments were the most preferred preservation methods, whereas preservatives, irradiation, radio waves and microwaves were the least favored, suggesting that consumers dislike methods connected with “waves” to a similar extent as their dislike for preservatives. The control factors proved to significantly modify the evaluation of the methods. The analysis of alternative names for microwave treatment showed that “dielectric heating” was significantly better perceived. These research findings are important as the basis for understanding consumer attitudes. Implications for business and directions of future research are also indicated.

An Evaluation of a Virtual Food Safety Program for Low-Income Families: Applying the Theory of Planned Behavior

Low-income families are reported to have a limited knowledge of food safety and resources to follow food safety practices compared with the rest of the population. This paper evaluated a virtual food safety educational program targeting food handlers in low-income families. Trained native speakers of English and Spanish delivered course materials in both languages. A total of 60 individuals participated in the program, with 30 participants in each language group. Most were female, and most had fewer than three children. After the program, participants’ food safety knowledge and self-reported safe food practice behavior scores increased significantly from 5.32 to 7.43 (out of 8.00) and from 24.78 to 29.30 (out of 35.00), respectively. The theory of planned behavior (TPB) was used to understand individuals’ behavior change intention of food safety practices. All the TPB constructs’ scores, including attitudes toward the behavior, perceived behavioral control, subjective norms, and behavior change intentions, were improved significantly; however, only the subjective norms and perceived behavioral control were significantly correlated with the behavior change intentions. This virtual educational program improved low-income individuals’ food safety knowledge and changed their food safety attitudes and behaviors, giving a path to develop and evaluate more virtual food safety educational programs in the future.