Sustainable food literacy: A measure to promote sustainable diet practices

Abstract

Sustainable diets and food systems are considered essential aspects of food literacy. Food literacy advocates also suggest food literacy programs be enhanced to develop knowledge, skills, and attitudes to address sustainability issues. However, previous food literacy assessment tools cannot effectively measure the knowledge and abilities required to implement sustainable diets. To overcome such flaws, this study developed and validated a new food literacy scale highlighting important issues of healthy food consumption and environmental sustainability and for possible use as a tool in evaluating an individual's ability to practice sustainable diets. Following a four-stage scale development approach, this study performed web-based questionnaire surveys to develop a sustainable food literacy scale. A total of 968 valid questionnaires collected from Taiwanese residents were received. The results revealed the sustainable food literacy scale exhibits good reliability and validity. Four critical dimensions containing 26 items of sustainable food literacy were identified, including sustainable food knowledge, food skills, attitudes, and action intent and action strategies. This study further examined the relationship between all subscales and the socio-demographic characteristics. The findings suggested gender and education were not found to be related to sustainable food literacy. Both the frequency of cooking and food purchase were significantly associated with all subscale scores. Monthly household income was a significant correlate of all subscales except attitudes. The scale validated in this study not only helps scholars test theories relating to sustainable diet but also assists food policy makers and educators to gage individuals’ sustainable food literacy across genders.