In this paper we argue that institutional conditions should be taken into consideration when consumers trust in food safety is analysed. Our survey results demonstrate that levels of trust in food safety varies considerably across our three selected countries: Russian consumers expressing the lowest level of trust, Norwegian consumers the highest and Danish consumers expressing levels of trust in food safety which were in between. We find empirical evidence in all countries that consumers trust in food safety is related to their evaluation of how their national food control authorities perform, as well as to what extend they trust market mechanisms to secure food quality. However, while trust in food safety in the Scandinavian countries is more likely to rest on trust in public food control, trust in food safety more often depend on trust in market mechanisms in the St. Petersburg region.

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Patterns of sugar consumption were studied prospectively in a birth cohort of 231 Norwegian children. Information on dietary habits and sugar consumption was collected at the children's ages of 10 months, 18 months, and 2 yr. The results of the factor analyses showed that the children's sugar consumption constituted a separate dimension of dietary habits. Patterns of sugar consumption seemed to be established already during infancy. The children's sugar consumption increased from infancy to the age of 2 yr, and the patterns of sugar consumption also seemed to be maintained throughout the first years of early childhood. Sugar consumption was also analyzed multivariately using indicators of social background and family size as explanatory variables, but the explanatory power of these variables was rather poor and decreasing with age.

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