Examination of the Effectiveness of Cooking Practice Materials for Food Allergies

— A Comparison of Junior High School Students with and without Allergies —

Abstract

  12% of students at Junior High School X had food allergy symptoms. To address this issue, three menus with non-allergenic ingredients such as “pizza and consommé” were developed and three cooking practice sessions were conducted. After each cooking practice session, the students were asked to cook the same menu by themselves at home and submit a report as an assignment.

  In this study, we investigated the content of the description in the assignment for “pizza and consommé” and the number of times it was cooked at home, and examined the effectiveness of materials through the comparison and analysis between those with and without allergies. The study subjects were 178 students who enrolled at Junior High School X in April 2016. Of these students, 10.7% (19 students) had food allergy symptoms.

  The average number of times that students cooked the menu at home was 3.1 times, and the highest number was 13 times in six months. Students who suffered from food allergy symptoms were interested in acquiring basic cooking knowledge and skill and they tended to prefer simple cooking. Students without food allergy symptoms tended to be interested in topics such as the properties of ingredients, cooking theory and food selection.