Food Protection Trends - July/August 2023 - 307

TABLE 2. Semi-structured interview guide exploring young women's food skills
Question type
Introductory
Question topic
For students: What faculty are you in? For city residents: Where do you work?
Opening
When we talk about " food skills, " it can mean many things. What do " food skills " mean to you?
There's been some research in this area, and they've discovered that food skills fall into three key areas.
(Participants were shown a list of food skills in three key domains: food selection and planning; food
preparation; food safety and storage.) Could you please take a moment to read through this? We're showing you
this just so we have a basis for our conversation today.
Some people say food preparation takes too much time or too much work, but others say they enjoy it. How do
you feel about food preparation?
Transition
If I asked you to describe " young women and food skills, " what would you say?
How would you describe your level of food skills? (e.g., no food preparation ability to preparing full meals
starting from basic ingredients)
Probes: How did you arrive at this level? Did/do you feel adequately prepared with your level of food skills
when you started/start to live on your own?
Key
In which area of food skills do you feel MOST confident and/or competent?
Probes: How did you gain confidence/competence in these areas? What was the best way that you learned how
to do these specific skills? Why?
In which area of food skills do you feel LEAST confident and/or competent?
Probes: Why do you feel you are not confident/competent in this/these area(s)? What had the greatest
influence on this outcome? Why do you think that is?
Closing
Is there anything that we haven't talked about today that you would like to share?
RESULTS
Thirty young women from Western University and London
participated in the study. Participant demographics are
presented in Table 1. Following the semistructured interview
guide (Table 2), interviews ranged from 20 to 60 min. Results
are presented in Table 3, with examples of participants'
comments included both in the text and in a table, according
to the three key research questions: (i) What do food skills
mean to you? (ii) How did you learn food skills? and (iii) In
what area are you most and least confident?
Meaning of food skills
For the question " What do food skills mean to you? " the
main theme of the responses was food preparation skills
(e.g., ability to cook, knowledge in preparing a variety of
foods, ability to follow a recipe). Preparation skills were
mentioned by almost all participants (n = 27; 90%). Only
seven participants (23%) mentioned food safety behaviors.
Interestingly, after being shown a one-page summary (Table
4) of the three food skills domains (i.e., food selection and
planning, food preparation, and food safety and storage),
some were surprised to see the number of skills listed under
food safety and storage or that food safety was considered
a component of overall food skills. The majority (n = 22;
73%) agreed that making meals at home helped them to eat
healthier; however, as one participant (P5) explained, " That's
contingent on the fact that you know how to cook. "
A second theme was that young women's food skills in general
were often described as insufficient, reflecting activities
in the food preparation domain and in food selection and
planning. Although some participants described friends who
were very skilled, others commented that food skills could
be quite variable. For example, some explained that young
women may be skilled in food preparation, but not know how
to safely store leftovers. Only three (10%) of the participants
perceived their own food skills to be low.
Sources of food skills knowledge
The major theme associated with the question " How did
you learn food skills? " was that many participants (n = 12;
40%) recalled learning food skills from their mothers. Seven
of them said that they learned food skills by helping with
small, basic tasks in the kitchen. Role modeling was a key
method of skill transference for two participants. Only two
July/August Food Protection Trends 307

Food Protection Trends - July/August 2023

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