5. Food safety awareness, messages, and knowledge
What is the state of awareness of modern society in terms of food safety? A survey of students and working people showed different levels of awareness. On investigating food safety awareness, the majority of respondents (76%) indicated that it was “very safe” to wash hands after touching raw plant/chicken/meat/fish. Also 50% of the students indicated that it was “very safe” to use separate cutting boards or knives for raw food products. These showed a significantly high level of food safety awareness among the students.
The female students at the secondary level showed a significant higher level in terms of lack of awareness for cross-contamination and positive food safety awareness habits compared to the male students. The female students at the tertiary level showed a significant lower level of awareness for cross-contamination than their male counterparts. Overall, the majority of students showed a lack of awareness of cross-contamination. The majority of males at the secondary level were unaware of the risks associated with the area of cross-contamination.
The mean awareness score was (16/50) at the secondary level and at the tertiary level, it was 15/50. The range of awareness scores for secondary students was 0–35 out of 50 and 0–30 out of 50 for the tertiary level students. The male students at the tertiary level showed a higher level of practicing food safety awareness and scored awareness. Also, the food safety awareness median (15/50) and mode (20/50) scores were the same at the secondary and tertiary level. At the secondary school level, 50% of females and 6% of males responded “yes” to seeing, hearing, and reading information about food safety apart from this questionnaire. These students participated in Home Economics and Food and Nutrition classes. At the tertiary level, 21% of males and 17% of females also indicated “yes”. Of the n =205 respondents, 15% of the females and 11% of the males indicated “no” to seeing, hearing, and reading information about food safety apart from this questionnaire and 13% of females and 10% of males indicated that they cannot recall seeing, reading, or hearing anything about food safety. Eighteen percent (18%) of respondents at the tertiary level stated that they got food safety information from the television and the Internet.
Further analysis as to where students heard or read information about food safety revealed that 36% of females and 14%of males got information from various other sources such as newspapers, books, parents, and food labels. At the secondary school level, 52% of the female students and 5% of the male students indicated that they had formal training in food safety or food preparation. At the tertiary level, 56% of the males and 36% of females indicated that they had formal training in food safety or food preparation.
Participants were not scored on the knowledge questions, since these questions were structured to determine the participants’ self-assessment of their food safety knowledge. The self-assessment of perceived food safety knowledge of 23% of females and 3% of males respondents at the secondary and 7% of female and 12% of male respondents at the tertiary level revealed that they felt that their knowledge base of food safety was “very good”. A further breakdown by gender demonstrated that 43% of the females and 1% of males at the secondary level, together with 25% of females and 27% of males at the tertiary level, felt that their food safety knowledge was “quite good”. The males at the tertiary level showed a higher perceived knowledge level than their female counterparts and the males at the secondary level. The male students at the secondary level showed a significant lower knowledge level than their female counterparts. There was no significance between the females at both institutions. Overall, at the secondary level, the female population and the male population at the tertiary level showed that the knowledge base of these students reflected knowledge of food safety issues.
