Food Selection
Conditions
Keywords
environmental concerns, nutrient profiling
Brief summary
Université Laval wishes to raise awareness among students and employees in the university community so that they become aware of the impacts of their consumption choices by equipping them to adopt consumption behaviours that are favourable to the environment and their health. To do this, it is necessary to assess consumers' perception of the information available when choosing a meal to determine, among other things, whether knowledge of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions influences their selections. In addition to this evaluation criterion, consumer perception of the nutritional quality of food will also be assessed. The nutritional composition of the meals of the characterized week will make it possible to calculate, using a nutritional profiling tool, the nutritional quality score of each meal of the day.
Detailed description
This study consists of an individual meeting with each participant. This meeting will last approximately 1 hour during which each subject will choose a meal and complete various questionnaires. Subjects (male or female) will be randomly assigned to one of the four experimental conditions (GHG, nutrition, GHG+nutrition and no logo). Since subjects could change their eating behaviours if they knew the true purpose of the study, they will be deliberately misled when they enter the study. Participants will be recruited to participate in a market research study in which they will be invited to taste and evaluate a new meal for the cafeteria. At the end of the session, each participant will be informed of the actual objective of the study. In this context, the general objectives of this second phase of the project are therefore: 1. Evaluate consumer perceptions of the available information on the GHG score (in equivalent C02), the nutritional quality score and the eco-efficiency score (combination of GHG + nutrition), and; 2. Determine if the presence of information (logo on the different scores) influences food choice and consumption among Université Laval students and staff.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALInformation regarding GHG and/or nutrition
Participants will have to select a meal from a menu.
Sponsors
Ministère de l'environnement et lutte contre les changements climatiques
Laval University
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
OTHER
Masking
SINGLE (Subject)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to 65 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* Study or work at Université Laval
Exclusion criteria
* People taking drugs that may affect appetite (e.g., antidepressants, antipsychotics or corticosteroids); * People with food allergies or intolerances, and pregnant and lactating women; * People with food aversions to more than 20% of the main meal ingredients from the menu.
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Consumer perceptions of the meal given the information available on the GHG score, the nutritional quality score and the eco-efficiency score (combination of GHG + nutrition) vs no logo. | Within the year after the beginning of the study | Visual analogue scale (150mm) evaluating the perception of the participants according to the information given. Participants draw a line on the scale (between 0 and 150 mm). The higher the score, the higher the appreciation. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Food choice by the students and staff at Université Laval depending on the presence of information (logo on the different scores). | Within the year after the beginning of the study | Which meal between the 2 meals presented will be chosen by the participants given the information (logos or no logo) they received. |
| Amount of the meal consumed by the students and staff at Université Laval depending on the presence of information (logo on the different scores). | Within the year after the beginning of the study | Measured in grams of food before and after the meal. |
Countries
Canada
Outcome results
None listed