Food safety behaviors observed in celebrity chefs across a variety of programs

Abstract

This study suggests that there is a need for improvement in demonstrated and communicated food safety behaviors among professional chefs. It also suggests that public health professionals must work to mitigate the impact of poorly modeled behaviors.

“Meat thermometer usage amongst European and North American consumers: A scoping review”

“…Lack of meat thermometers usage was reported to be a common behavior among celebrity chefs. A content analysis of 100 US TV shows by Maughan, Chambers, and Godwin (2017) showed that 75% of the shows did not use a meat thermometer or give temperature information for different types of meat. Similar results were reported by Woods (2015) based on 60 TV cooking shows in the US.…”

Kitchen Hygiene in the Spotlight: How Cooking Shows Influence Viewers’ Hygiene Practices

“…Hygiene lapses were assessed with a self‐developed scoring sheet listing common violations of basic hygiene rules (see the Supporting Information). The scoring sheet was based on hygiene lapses previously observed in the context of TV cooking shows (Borda et al., 2014; Geppert et al., 2019; Maughan et al., 2017) and covered the key areas for safe food handling identified by the WHO (2006): keep clean, separate raw and cooked, cook thoroughly, keep food at safe temperatures (WHO also recommends to use safe water and raw materials, which was treated as a given in the context of our study). A draft version of the scoring sheet was reviewed by external experts in the field of food hygiene who were not involved in this study.…”

“…Analogously to the development of the scoring sheet (see above), the hygiene behavior demonstrated in the videos was based on previous findings pertaining to the adherence to hygiene rules in TV cooking shows (Borda et al., 2014; Geppert et al., 2019; Maughan et al., 2017). Common mistakes observed on TV include poor hand hygiene, such as a lack of hand washing before starting food preparation, after handling raw food and after coughing, scratching or blowing one's nose; insufficient cleaning of utensils and surfaces between operations; as well as personal hygiene aspects such as wearing rings during food preparation.…”

“…Indeed, preliminary evidence suggests that individuals tend to regard TV chefs as role models for food handling and report modeling certain hygiene behaviors after them (Woods & Bruhn, 2016). However, as studies from various countries have shown, TV chefs frequently fail to follow common kitchen hygiene recommendations (Borda et al., 2014; Cohen & Olson, 2016; Geppert et al., 2019; Maughan, Chambers IV, & Godwin, 2017). Consequently, integrating correct hygiene practices in cooking shows more frequently may serve to improve hygiene practices among viewers.…”

“…Although previous studies evaluated hygiene practices as seen in cooking shows as modeling behaviors (Cohen & Olson, 2016; Maughan et al., 2017), so far no study has directly assessed a causal effect of hygiene practices demonstrated by TV chefs in cooking shows on actual hygiene behavior among viewers. As self‐reported measures of hygiene practices tend to show low correspondence with actual behavior (Byrd‐Bredbenner et al., 2013; Redmond & Griffith, 2003), this study focused on the hygiene behavior of participants actually cooking a dish.…”