Research
There is a food knowledge disconnect between the food research community, and general population. Academic experts know detailed information about foods, but do not know, (and cannot measure easily) what citizens understand or perceive to know about food. This pilot uses the STFC funded Zooniverse platform to ask citizens to provide their perceptions about images of specific foods (and serving sizes). For each portion image, one of a range of questions will be asked including perceptions of greenhouse gas emissions and energy (Calorie content).
Remember there are different portions of food in the image bank. If the same type of food appears, it is probably a different portion size.
If you have any questions please contact Dr Christian Reynolds, c.reynolds@sheffield.ac.uk
Food’s carbon footprint, or foodprint, is the greenhouse gas emissions per gramme of product produced by growing, rearing, farming, processing, transporting, storing, cooking and disposing of the food you eat. We are measuring greenhouse gas emissions in grams of carbon dioxide (CO2) per grams of product. The higher the carbon footprint the more environmental damage.
A calorie is a unit that is used to measure energy. The Calorie you see on a food package is actually a “kilocalorie”, or 1,000 calories. A Calorie (kcal) is the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram of water 1 degree Celsius. The higher the number of Calories the greater the amount of energy in the food.
Example carbon footprint and calories of 4 products:
- A medium portion of roast Lamb (~90g) has a carbon footprint of 180g of CO2. It contains 240 Calories (kcal) worth of energy.
- A portion of parsnips (~60g) has a carbon footprint of 2.2g of CO2. It contains 12.2 Calories (kcal)worth of energy.
- A bread roll (~112g) has a carbon footprint of 5g of CO2, and contains 280 Calories (kcal) worth of energy.
- A chocolate bar (~50g) has a carbon footprint of 9g of CO2, and contains 240 Calories (kcal) worth of energy.
We will ask many people the same question about this image, so don't worry if you aren't absolutely sure. Just give us your best guess.
This project (Piloting Zooniverse to help us understand citizen food perceptions) is funded by pilot funding from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Food Network+ (https://www.stfcfoodnetwork.org/).