‘Teaching Young Consumers’ – food safety in home and consumer studies from a teacher's perspective

Abstract

In Swedish compulsory school, the subject home and consumer studies (HCS) is an opportunity to create conscious consumers for the future. In Sweden, it has been estimated that half a million cases of foodborne infections occur each year, which has an impact on public health. The numbers of foodborne infections are affected by actions connected to the four Cs in food safety: cooking, cleaning, chilling and cross‐contamination. As foodborne infections in many cases are suspected to occur in private households, it is of research interest to study food safety teaching in HCS. The aim of this study was to investigate food safety as a part of HCS education and to provide insights regarding self‐reported food safety attitude, knowledge and behaviour among HCS teachers in Swedish compulsory schools. A web‐based questionnaire was distributed online in April 2012. A total of 335 teachers across the country participated, representing about one in five HCS teachers in Sweden. A majority of the responding teachers stated food safety as an important part of HCS education. The study indicates that food safety teaching can be done in different ways depending on factors such as working years, formal HCS education and daily routines in the classroom. The food safety routines relevant to a specific learning situation might determine the didactic choices, and thus some other important issues within the framework of the four Cs i.e. cold food storage, heating, storing leftovers, best before date, cooling and cross‐contamination might be neglected. When it comes to teaching food safety, there is no guarantee that the four Cs in food safety will be covered. Issues connected to cleaning seemed to occur more frequently in HCS teaching rather than the broader aspects of food safety.

Best-before date – food storage temperatures recorded by Swedish students

“…A relatively high proportion of food items were stored at higher temperatures than recommended, which indicates that information to consumers should focus on cold food storage. Teachers in home and consumer reported in a previous internet-based questionnaire that their food safety-teaching more often focused on cleaning issues than on issues connected with chilling (Lange et al, 2014). In the present study, the teachers reported that the observational investigation increased interest and knowledge of date labeling, food hygiene, refrigerator storage and food wastage among young students.…”

Curriculum Analysis of Food Safety Competences at Elementary and Upper‐Secondary Level of Formal Education Inside Food‐Related Programs in Slovenia

“…With the intention of obtaining an overview of the representation of food safety elements inside formal education, educational objectives were analyzed to obtain insight into the lesson content on the macro level (level of syllabus planner). As reported by Lange and others (), the syllabus was used by 82% of the teachers as a starting point for lesson planning, but also reported as a framing factor (Lange and others ).…”

“…The importance of temperature is often addressed. However, gaps in home economics teachers’ food safety knowledge and in their food safety behavior are reported by Lange and others (): 1 out of 5 home economics teachers reported that they did not include the refrigerator temperature in their teaching at all, and another 30% only taught it in theory.…”

Food Safety Conditions in Home-Kitchens: A Cross-Sectional Study in the Federal District/Brazil

“…Meanwhile, Unusan [31] suggested media campaigns. Lange et al [39] studied teachers' perceptions of food safety at home, and most of the teachers said that schools have the mission to provide knowledge on food safety at home. When evaluating the basic skills at schools, the most performed skills were hand washing, washing up dishes, cleaning of work surfaces, and handling of dishcloths.…”