How are food skills related to healthy eating and food waste?
How are food skills related to healthy eating and food waste?
This study examined how different food skills among Canadian parents were associated with diet quality and household food waste.
What We Did and Why We Did It
We conducted a cross-sectional study involving 130 Canadian parents of children aged 2–8 years living in Guelph-Wellington, Ontario. Parents completed surveys about their food skills, including food safety knowledge, meal planning, cooking confidence, and food preparation techniques. Diet quality was measured using 3-day food records, and household food waste was measured through detailed household waste audits.
Many Canadian adults have poor diet quality, and households waste large amounts of food each year. Food skills may help families prepare healthier meals and reduce food waste, but little research has examined how these skills relate to both outcomes. Understanding these relationships can help inform programs that promote healthier eating while minimizing food waste.
What We Found
What We Can Learn From This
Parents who planned meals before grocery shopping, understood safe cooking temperatures, and felt confident planning and adapting recipes tended to have better diet quality. Surprisingly, parents with greater confidence in cooking and food preparation skills also generated more household food waste, likely because they cooked more meals at home and handled more fresh, perishable ingredients. This suggests that while food skills can support healthier eating, additional strategies are needed to help families use ingredients efficiently and reduce waste.
Teaching food skills can improve diet quality, especially skills related to meal planning and recipe adaptation. However, food skills education should also include strategies for reducing food waste, such as meal planning, proper food storage, using leftovers, and making use of edible parts of foods to help families eat well while wasting less.
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