Attitudes and behaviour towards convenience food and food waste in the United Kingdom

Households in the UK discard much food. A reduction in such waste to mitigate environmental impact is part of UK government policy. This study investigated whether household food waste is linked to a lifestyle reliant on convenience food in younger consumers. A survey of 928 UK residents aged 18-40 years and responsible for the household food shopping (male n = 278; female n = 650) completed an online questionnaire designed to measure attitudes to convenience food and to quantify household food waste. Cluster analysis of 24 food-related lifestyle factors identified 5 consumer groups. General linear modelling techniques were used to test relationships between the purchase frequency of convenience food and household food waste. From the cluster analysis, five distinct convenience profiles emerged comprising: ‘epicures’ (n = 135), ‘traditional consumers’ (n = 255), ‘casual consumers’ (n = 246), ‘food detached consumers’ (n = 151) and ‘kitchen evaders’ (n = 141). Casual consumers and kitchen evaders were the most reliant on convenience food and notably were the most wasteful. The demographic profile of kitchen evaders matched the population groups currently targeted by UK food waste policy. Casual consumers represent a new and distinct group characterised by “buy a lot and waste a lot” behaviour. Household size, packaging format, price-awareness and marketing all appear to influence levels of food waste. However, it seems that subtle behavioural and sociocultural factors also have impact. Further research is needed to elucidate the factors that mediate the positive association between the purchase of convenience food and reported food waste in order to inform food waste policy and initiatives

Value-Chain Wide Food Waste Management: A Systematic Literature Review

© 2019, Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The agriculture value chain, from farm to fork, has received enormous attention because of its key role in achieving United Nations Global Challenges Goals. Food waste occurs in many different forms and at all stages of the food value chain, it has become a worldwide issue that requires urgent actions. However, the management of food waste has been traditionally segmented and in an isolated manner. This paper reviews existing work that has been done on food waste management in literature by taking a holistic approach, in order to identify the causes of food waste, food waste prevention strategies, and elicit recommendations for future work. A five step systematic literature review has been adopted for a thorough examination of the existing research on the topic and new insights have been obtained. The findings suggest that the main sources of food waste include food overproduction and surplus, food waste caused by processing, logistical inconsistencies, and households. Main food waste prevention strategies have been revealed in this paper include policy solutions, packaging solutions, date-labelling solutions, logistics solutions, changing consumers’ behaviours, and reuse and redistribution solutions. Future research directions such as using value chain models to reduce food waste and forecasting food waste have been identified in this paper. This study makes a contribution to the extant literature in the field of food waste management by discovering main causes of food waste in the value chain and eliciting prevention strategies that can be used to reduce/eliminate relevant food waste

Vascular and blood-brain barrier-related changes underlie stress responses and resilience in female mice and depression in human tissue

Prevalence, symptoms, and treatment of depression suggest that major depressive disorders (MDD) present sex differences. Social stress-induced neurovascular pathology is associated with depressive symptoms in male mice; however, this association is unclear in females. Here, we report that chronic social and subchronic variable stress promotes blood-brain barrier (BBB) alterations in mood-related brain regions of female mice. Targeted disruption of the BBB in the female prefrontal cortex (PFC) induces anxiety- and depression-like behaviours. By comparing the endothelium cell-specific transcriptomic profiling of the mouse male and female PFC, we identify several pathways and genes involved in maladaptive stress responses and resilience to stress. Furthermore, we confirm that the BBB in the PFC of stressed female mice is leaky. Then, we identify circulating vascular biomarkers of chronic stress, such as soluble E-selectin. Similar changes in circulating soluble E-selectin, BBB gene expression and morphology can be found in blood serum and postmortem brain samples from women diagnosed with MDD. Altogether, we propose that BBB dysfunction plays an important role in modulating stress responses in female mice and possibly MDD

La nature humaine : une aporie occidentale ?

International audienc

La nature humaine : une aporie occidentale ?

International audienc