CCTV and Microbial Swabs Showed Where Adults are Going Wrong in the Kitchen

or our latest study, we wanted to find out just where people are going wrong. But rather than conduct a survey, we decided to use the most reliable method of finding out what people are doing in the kitchen – watching them in action. At Cardiff Metropolitan’s ZERO2FIVE Food Industry Centre, we have a fully fitted unit which is much like a home kitchen, except with CCTV cameras to observe behaviour. We wanted to explore the food safety practices of older adults in particular, so we invited 100 people over the age of 60 to prepare a meal for themselves in the unit. Older adults are associated with increased incidence of foodborne illness, due to reduced immune function, so food safety practices at home are particularly important for them. However, researchers have found that those over 60 have insufficient knowledge, and negative attitudes towards food safety, which may contribute to the implementation of unsafe food handling practices. But data on older adults’ actual food safety behaviours are lacking. Though there have been several studies, I have found that less than a third of consumer food safety research covering all age groups – the majority of which were conducted in home kitchens – determine actual behaviour. In home kitchens, certain variables (such as baseline microbial levels) can’t be controlled, making comparisons between individuals problematic. In addition, a researcher’s presence can make participants behave diffe https://www.technologynetworks.com/applied-sciences/news/cctv-and-microbial-swabs-showed-where-adults-are-going-wrong-in-the-kitchen-299797?utm_campaign=Newsletter_TN_BreakingScienceNews&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=62222883&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--XW1m9snMv0_06MlwXSX5lk1VwdVG5Hqb8BKJWBdgD2x7jN7U2dQPNPnjvgo1NNJdEZaq-7AgLZYD5TeRvN7_4ISlgbw&_hsmi=62222883