Skip to main content
NUTRITION 2023 Main banner
Icon Legend
This session is not in your schedule.
This session is in your schedule. Click again to remove it.
Back

Topical Area: Global Nutrition

Global Nutrition (Poster Session)

(P17-011-23) Safe Recipe Improves Food Safety Practices During Food Preparation Among Low-Income Households in Guayaquil, Ecuador

Sunday, July 23, 2023
12:45 PM – 1:45 PM ET
Location: Poster Board 309
Disclosure(s):
Diana G. Carvajal-Aldaz, M.Sc. PhD: No relevant financial relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.


Objectives: Determine if the inclusion of food safety steps in a recipe improves food safety practices during its preparation among low-income and food-insecure households.

Methods: A total of 21 healthy breakfast recipes were proposed to a group of low-income mothers with children aged under 5 in Guayaquil, Ecuador to promote healthy eating and prevent malnutrition. A need for food safety education was evident after measuring the mothers’ Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices using the FAO KAP questionnaire. Therefore, mothers were educated in the Five Keys to Safer Food. One recipe was randomly chosen and modified following the Safe Recipe Style Guide. A total of 15 mothers were recruited for the study and were randomly and evenly distributed into three groups: (1) a negative control group, (2) a positive control group, and (3) an experimental group. Group 1 had no previous knowledge of food safety and no Safe Food Recipe (SFR), and Group 2 and Group 3 both had the above-mentioned food safety education; however, only Group 3 had the SFR. Participants were observed and were given a score if they followed the safety steps by means of a checklist. The association between having the SFR and the observance of the safety steps was determined by Fisher’s test. Mean differences in the number of observed steps between groups were analyzed by MANOVA test. Both tests were performed considering a p-value < 0.05 using the RStudio software.

Results: Participants who had the SFR had better food safety practices than the two control groups since they followed 73% of the required food safety steps compared to 6% in the negative control group and 26% in the positive control group (p= 0.0006101). The observance of the safety steps was associated with SFR (p= 0.001998).

Conclusions: The addition of food safety steps improves food safety practices among low-income and food-insecure mothers.

Funding Sources: ESPOL and Fundación Unidos