You know Food?

What is the purpose of this research?
The ultimate aim of this research is to make it easier for consumers to make informed decisions towards healthier diets with reduced environmental impacts. Academic food researchers know detailed information about foods, but there is little knowledge of what consumers understand or perceive of different food products. This makes it very difficult to promote more healthy and sustainable choices and to assess the effectiveness of dietary advice policies.
If we are to make sustainable diets more accessible, we need to understand which foods consumers already perceive to be un/sustainable and how they associate these with nutrition, safety and convenience. This will identify opportunities to promote behaviour changes that are likely to have high consumer acceptance, besides areas where more education is needed. Certain sustainable choices, for instance, may be currently underutilised due to perceived ideas about safety or preparation difficulty.
This survey measures participants perceptions of greenhouse gas emissions, energy content ( calories - kcal), safety and ease of preparation for specific serving sizes of different food products. The results will ultimately help to tailor dietary advice to pre-existing consumer beliefs, to make healthy and sustainable diets more understandable and accessible.

Who is funding this research?
You Know Food? was funded by The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Food Network+: an interdisciplinary community working to secure the supply of safe, nutritious food while conserving natural resources in the context of climate change. This research is part of a group of projects investigating opportunities to make our food systems more sustainable and resilient through new technologies and data science; promoting efficient resource management and encouraging behaviour change in consumers.

** Who is doing this research?**
You Know Food? has been developed by a team of researchers from nine different UK institutions, headed by Dr Christian Reynolds (University of Sheffield). They include statisticians, experts in the environmental impacts of food systems and those with experience of managing citizen science projects. Full details can be found here.

Why did you choose these food products?
The featured food products were chosen because they are 30 of the most commonly consumed foods in the UK (according to the National Diet and Nutrition Survey) and form the basis of many standard meals.

Where do the food stats/images come from?
Data from the National Diet and Nutrition Survey were used to calculate the average portion sizes and their calorie amounts. These values were then used to determine the associated greenhouse gas emissions using the Greenhouse Gas and Dietary choices ​Open source Toolkit (GGDOT) developed by Professor Sarah Bridle (University of Manchester).
The images were provided by Piers Cawley, a photographer and operator of The Loafery.

How do you take into account the greenhouse gas emissions from transporting food? Should we presume the products are produced locally or overseas?
In the current version of this survey, the greenhouse gas emissions for each food product/portion size were calculated using a global average including different methods of production (e.g. organic vs. intensive farming) and country of origin (based on available data). The reported greenhouse gas emissions are estimated up to the regional distribution center: this accounts for typically over 60% of a food product’s full environmental impact. As the survey is made global, transport of imported food is not included.This is why we ask our participants to state their geographical location, so that we can see how perceptions of sustainability vary across the world. In future versions we hope to investigate how responses change depending on whether the product is produced locally or overseas. However, given that transport only accounts for around 11% of the embedded greenhouse gas emissions for food, our initial focus is how perceptions of sustainability vary according to food type and portion size.

Can my friends and family take part?
Yes, we are hoping for a wide range or participants from as many different backgrounds and countries as possible. Please help us by encouraging your friends and family to take part and spreading the word on social media!

Is this survey suitable for children and school groups?
For the current survey, we ask that participants be at least 18 years old. In the next phase we hope to be able to include children and we are working on developing teacher packs to support school projects investigating the environmental impacts of different diets.

When can we expect to see the first results?
We hope to announce the first results in early 2019. For the latest news, keep checking the ‘Updates’ discussion forum for the project.

What is the next stage for this research?
We are currently applying for more funding so that we can expand this survey to feature a wider range of food products and to include other diets, languages and cultures.