6 Clinical Trials for Various Conditions
The primary aim of this study is to reduce household food waste and improve individual nutrition. This will be achieved using the FoodImageTM smartphone app 1, a novel method for measuring household food acquisition, food intake, and food waste decisions, to assess the efficacy of a smart intervention that targets food waste reduction and diet quality improvement. The intervention is designed to improve nutrition by offsetting intake of less nutritious foods with increased fresh fruit and vegetable (FV) intake while simultaneously reducing household food waste via strategies tailored to participating households.
The Laboratory Study will be conducted at PBRC and will include participants (N=25) from a wide array of social and economic groups will be recruited and trained on the use of the FoodImage app. Participants use the app to measure food waste (including foods with inedible parts) created during a simulated meal preparation setting, a simulated meal consumption setting with plate waste, and a simulated cabinet and refrigerator clean-out of spoiled and out-of-date foods, where the number of items and the amounts of waste for each task is randomly assigned across participants and blinded from the research staff evaluating images and coding data. These participants will denote the normal discard destination (I.e., garbage, sink/disposal, feed to animal, compost) for each item as if the waste had occurred in their own home.
Participants will be asked to use the app to capture data on food purchases, food waste that occurs during food preparation, food waste that is present after eating, and food waste from cabinet and refrigerator/freezer clean-outs. During collection of much of the food waste data, participants will record in the app if food waste will be disposed of via composting, disposal, fed to pets, or garbage/landfill. They will also indicate if the food was spoiled, past the expiration date, etc. This will occur for 4-8 days. Participants should perform the prep and eat occasions 4-8 days. The shopping and toss occasions should be completed for at least 7 days.
The proposed research will create accurate and standardized household FW measurement methodologies that foster serial and longitudinal assessments as well as confident and convenient one-time measurement by stakeholders. The investigators will have participants simutaneously deploy (1) retrospective surveys (2) curbside audits.
Participants will perform the FoodImage app in the lab. A survey will be provided after the study visit. Also the bag of combined waste will be given to a hired contractor who will sort and weigh the waste, thus creating a second estimate of waste and its key components using standard industry practices (i.e. curbside).
The proposed research will create accurate and standardized household food waste measurement technologies that foster serial and longitudinal assessments as well as confident and convenient one-time measurement. The investigators propose the SCFI field study where participants simultaneously deploy 3 measurement approaches (1) retrospective surveys (2) curbside audits, and (3) the FoodImage smartphone app.