Abstract
A questionnaire survey was conducted among all parents/guardians at four elementary schools in Osaka City with the aim of proposing various bean menus and creating opportunities to cook beans in the home. For the 422 respondents who were suitable for analysis, we examined the preferences and cooking motivations for six kinds of bean dishes made using dried or precooked beans and their relation to bean intake background factors. In the three kinds of Japanese-style bean menus made using dried beans, significant differences were shown between preferences and cooking motivations. Both the highest preference and cooking motivation were for minestrone made using precooked beans. On the other hand, regarding bean and vegetable salad, the preference and cooking motivation were quite low and significantly related to many bean intake background factors. The number of menus selected as bean dishes to cook was affected by the number of menus selected as beans dishes to eat, nutritional awareness concerning beans, and the frequency of eating beans. This result suggests that proposal of easy-to-cook and attractive bean dishes and education concerning the nutritional value of beans are effective means of encouraging cooking of beans in the home. The cooking motivation for bean dishes made using precooked beans was significantly higher than that for bean dishes made using dried beans in the group who had a lower intake frequency or did not like beans. Therefore, it is possible that bean dishes made using precooked beans might encourage home cooking in the group who rarely eat beans.
