A sample of 243 Willamette Valley households participated in
personal interviews and kept 7-day records of all foods brought into
the household but not consumed by human household members. Their
reason for discarding the foods, the amounts of discard, and their
assessment of the safety of the foods were compared to household
characteristics. Age of the major food preparer and the presence of
children had a marked effect upon the discard patterns of the household.
Households with children younger than 10 years discarded an
average of $3.60 (1185 g) in a 7 consecutive day period, households
with children 10-18 years of age discarded an average of $4.36
(2743 g), and childless households discarded an average of $2.11
(1195 g).
In a sample of 50 households, as the household refrigerator
temperature (as determined during the personal interview) increased
from 35°F (2°C) to 68°F (20°C), the amount of discards also increased
(r [subscript cost] = .82, r [subscript g] = .80).
Food which was being discarded due to poor quality or because it
was judged unsafe to eat by the householder was collected daily over
a 3-day period for a subsample of 50 of the households. These
collected discards were evaluated by a trained panel for degree of
off-color, off-odor, and off-texture compared to the normal product
standards, and also were microbiologically analyzed.
When the householder's estimate of amount of food discarded was
converted from their household measures to grams using food composition
tables, the householder's estimate was 97% of the actual grams
of food as weighed in the laboratory.
Both studies found consumer confusion between solely quality
changes in a food and environmental conditions that allow the possibility
of pathogen growth in foods. In 62% of the microbiologically
analyzed foods, the householder did not make correct safety assessments.
In 9% of the microbiologically analyzed foods, an assessment
of safe was made by the householder for foods which were determined
to be at risk. Uncoded dates on packaged foods were the basis for
the householder's discard decision for 17% of the total foods
appearing on the 7-day records. Householders often stated they felt
it would be unsafe to consume this food. Educational programs which
give the householder criteria for the evaluation of food safety are
recommended. / Graduation date: 1985
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/27176 |
| Date | 11 April 1985 |
| Creators | VanDeRiet, Shirley J. |
| Contributors | Woodburn, Margy |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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