Correlations between Self-Reported Cooking Confidence and Creativity and Use of Convenience Cooking Products in an Australian Cohort

Abstract

Background: Most Australians do not meet vegetable intake recommendations. Vegetables are most often consumed in evening meals. However, they often require preparation and therefore cooking skills. Convenience cooking products such as meal bases/concentrates and ready-made sauces are increasingly common and popular and may help address the barriers to vegetable consumption in terms of cost and time. These products also typically provide recipes, which include vegetables, and as such, may help address the barriers of cooking skills, confidence, and creativity. However, the relationships between the use of these products, cooking confidence, and cooking creativity remain unknown. Methods: Australian adults were surveyed (snowball recruitment, n = 842) on their use of convenience cooking products (meal bases/recipe concentrates, simmer sauces, marinades, and other cooking sauces), cooking confidence (7 item scale) and creativity (6 item scale), and demographic information. Results: Overall, 63.2% of participants reported using convenience cooking products. Those using these products had lower mean cooking skills confidence and creativity scores than those who did not, in all product categories assessed. Among users, those who reported "always" following the recipes provided had lower mean cooking confidence and creativity scores than those who followed the recipes less regularly. Conclusions: Therefore, improving the vegetable content of recipes provided with these products may be a tool to increase vegetable intake by users with lower cooking skills (confidence and creativity). This may complement traditional approaches such as education in improving vegetable intake.

Correlations between Convenience Cooking Product Use and Vegetable Intake

“…This may reflect the fact that those who choose convenience cooking products face more barriers to obtaining a healthy diet and accessing vegetables. We have previously demonstrated that those who use convenience cooking products (including meal and recipe bases, marinades, and other sauces) have lower cooking confidence and creativity [22], and it is established that those with lower cooking skills are less likely to eat a healthy balanced diet [29][30][31]. Additional research is needed to determine if convenience cooking products are acting as a tool to replace other less healthful convenience foods, such as takeaway foods and ready-made meals accessed outside of the home, or if they are displacing more healthful home-cooked meals, in order to assess the utility of these products in encouraging a healthy diet.…”

“…This cross-sectional survey (via Qualtrics, SAP, Provo, UT, USA) was conducted using snowball recruitment, as described in Brasington et al, for ~7 weeks in 2020 [22]. Participants were living in Australia, over 18 years of age, and proficient in English comprehension skills, as the survey was administered in English.…”

“…Participants were then categorised as "users" or "nonusers" of these products. Regarding back-of-pack recipes, participants were asked if they always, sometimes, or never follow the recipes provided with products [22]. In a matrix style question, users were also asked to select from a list of actions what they were most likely to do if they were following a back-of-pack recipe on the product classes they reported using and either did not have, did not like, or could not eat a vegetable listed (not including that vegetable, replacing it with a different vegetable, replacing it with a similar vegetable, not making the meal at all, not sure, other).…”

“…It has also been suggested that the popularity of convenience products is not only to do with time, but also in reducing the physical and cognitive effort regarding planning and preparing meals [20,21]. Those in Australia who report using convenience cooking products also scored lower on scales of cooking confidence and creativity [22].…”

Determinants of Changes in the Diet Quality of Japanese Adults during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic

“…According to a previous study on pregnant Japanese women, the chance of eating a balanced meal more than twice a day was higher among those who valued cooking and were more confident in preparing nutritious meals [ 40 ]. Brasington et al [ 41 ] found that adults who were less confident in cooking were more likely to use convenient cooking products, including meal/recipe bases (concentrates) or simmer sauces. Lam and [ 42 ] also reported that individuals with more confidence in their cooking skills used ultraprocessed foods less frequently.…”