Food Skills: Associations With Diet Quality and Food Waste Among Canadian Parents

Learning What Works: A Mixed-Methods Study of American Self-identified Food Conservers

OBJECTIVE

Identify psychosocial factors influencing food waste mitigation and explore motivations and strategies for successful conservation among self-identified food conservers.

METHODS

Mixed-methods study consisting of an online survey estimating food waste production and psychosocial factors and a focus group to explore waste mitigation strategies and motivations.

RESULTS

Sampled 27 self-identified conservers (female, aged 18-30 years, White/Asian). Mean household food waste was 6.6 cups/wk (range, 0.0-97.9 cups/wk; median 1.3 cups). Reported waste mitigation strategies include proactive mitigation and adaptive recovery measures in each phase of the food management continuum. Conservers reported various intrinsic and extrinsic motivations to reduce food waste and viewed barriers as manageable.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

Food conservers act on high intentions to reduce waste by consistently employing both proactive waste mitigation and adaptive food recovery measures. Future research is needed to determine if these findings hold in larger, more diverse samples and link specific behaviors to waste volume.

Is the adherence to the food practices recommended by the dietary guidelines for the Brazilian population associated with diet quality?

PURPOSE

The Brazilian Food Guide (BFG)'s messages are mostly qualitative and focused on food practices, such as meal planning, cooking, and eating modes. This study sough to investigate whether the adherence to these food practices is aligned with diet quality.

METHODS

A quota-based subsample of the NutriNet-Brasil Cohort (n = 2052) completed the Food Practices Brazil Scale (FPBr), a 24-item scale assessing the adherence to healthy eating practices recommended by the BFG. Four possible frequency-based answers are given and a score ranging from 0 to 72 is calculated by summing them (FPBr-score). Data from web-based 24-h recalls were used for calculating the usual percentage of energy intake (%energy) of ten food groups based on the level of food processing: plant-based unprocessed or minimally processed foods; processed foods; ultra-processed foods; fruits; vegetables; whole grains; beans and other legumes; nuts; red meat; and table sugar. The association between quartiles of the FPBr-score and food groups' %energy was analysed through crude and adjusted linear regression models.

RESULTS

Except for red meat, all the other food groups were linearly associated with the FPBr-score in the expected direction. For example, adjusted means for the %energy of plant-based unprocessed or minimally processed foods were 26.7% (CI95% 25.9-27.5) and 36.8% (CI95% 36.0-37.6) among those classified in the first and fourth quartiles of the FPBr-score, respectively. For ultra-processed foods, these percentages were 27.0 (CI95% 26.3-27.8) against 17.5 (CI95% 16.7-18.3).

CONCLUSIONS

These results support the use of messages based on practices and behaviors in Food-Based Dietary Guidelines. At the same time, they call attention to the importance of policies that enable people to adopt healthier food practices.

Food Values, Food Purchasing, and Eating-Related Outcomes Among a Sample of Quebec Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Purpose: This investigation evaluated food values, food purchasing, and other food and eating-related outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic in Quebec, Canada. The role of stress in eating outcomes was also examined.

Methods: An online household survey was conducted among Quebec adults aged ≥18 years (n = 658). Changes in outcomes during, as compared to before, the pandemic were evaluated using descriptive statistics and thematic analysis of free text responses. Eating outcomes by daily stress level (low, some, high) were assessed using Cochran–Armitage test for trend.

Results: Most respondents reported increased importance and purchasing of local food products (77% and 68%, respectively) and 60% reported increased grocery spending (mean ± standard deviation: 28% ± 23%). Respondents with a higher daily stress level had a higher frequency of reporting eating more than usual compared to before the pandemic (low stress 21%, some stress 34%, high stress 39%, p-trend <0.0001). Free text responses described more time spent at home as a reason for eating more than usual.

Conclusions: To support healthy eating during and post-pandemic, dietitians should consider patients’ mental/emotional well-being and time spent at home. Moreover, support of local food products may provide opportunities to promote healthy eating, sustainability, and post-pandemic resiliency of food systems.

The Impact of the Nutritional Knowledge of Polish Students Living Outside the Family Home on Consumer Behavior and Food Waste

Food waste remains a major problem for the world and food security. Despite the fact that consumers are significant producers of food waste, little research attention has been paid to young people who are in college and living away from the family home. The present study aimed to assess food waste among college students living away from the family home, taking into account the nutritional knowledge acquired during college. In addition, the goal was to compare how nutritional knowledge affects food waste and consumer behavior in the study group. Descriptive statistics were performed on behaviors with food management at home, as well as shopping planning and self-shopping at the store, for the total respondents, students with nutritional knowledge and students without such knowledge. A chi-square test was performed to show whether the field of study influences the frequency of food throwing away and the appropriate management of excess food. Spearman's rank correlations were calculated for the frequency of food discarding, the frequency and amount of shopping and the field of study. The results indicate that the field of study determined food discarding and appropriate food management (p < 0.05), while it was found that fermented dairy beverages, fruits and vegetables and bread were the most frequently discarded foods in both study groups (p < 0.05). Students with nutritional knowledge were less likely to throw away food compared to students without nutritional knowledge and were better at managing excess food.

Enablers and barriers of harnessing food waste to address food insecurity: a scoping review

Despite producing sufficient food for the global population, the growing prevalence of food insecurity in developed countries is cause for concern. The millions of metric tons of food wasted each year could be used instead to drastically lower rates of food insecurity and address food sustainability. In this scoping review, we aimed to identify barriers to and enablers of harnessing food waste across food sectors, including food retail, households, and food rescue organizations, to address food insecurity in a developed country, Australia. The findings demonstrate that research on and responsibility for harnessing food waste for food insecurity has predominantly fallen on ill-equipped food rescue organizations. Three primary policy advancements paramount to harnessing food waste to address food insecurity include (1) improving partnerships and subsidies to minimize transportation costs for redistributing imperfect or surplus food from farmers and retailers to those who with food insecurity; (2) enhancing existing partnerships and subsidies to stably involve more nutrition experts in food rescue organizations to improve the quality of foods being redistributed to those facing food insecurity; and (3) initiating interventions and campaigns that combine the following 5 characteristics: free to the participants; address food literacy; use multiple mass-media tools; are age tailored; and frame messages within personal values.