Kitchen Life, 2012

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.This is a qualitative data collection. This study was designed to investigate, document, analyse and interpret domestic kitchen practices to generate insights about ‘what goes on and why’ in UK kitchens, to inform the Food Standards Agency’s (FSA) thinking about how to reduce the burden of foodborne disease. A key focus of earlier FSA research has been on reported behaviours – the Kitchen Life study took a different approach, to examine what people do, what they say about what they do and the role of the kitchen itself and its assorted things, technologies and resources (chopping boards, microwaves and cupboards, for example). A qualitative and ethnographic approach was taken to investigate domestic kitchen practices in 20 UK households. The practices of those aged 60+ years and pregnant women were of particular interest to the FSA as these groups are vulnerable to foodborne illness; these household-types were therefore included in the study. Whilst the study used several qualitative methods to collect data, including video-observation and photo-elicitation, only anonymised transcripts from audio-recorded informal interviews are being deposited in the archive, due to issues of anonymity with the visual data.