Sustainable Culinary Skills: Fostering Vegetable-Centric Cooking Practices among Young Adults for Health and Environmental Benefits—A Qualitative Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This study, led by Rajshri Roy and colleagues, presents a comprehensive examination of the effectiveness of educational tools in promoting vegetable-centric cooking among young adults. The researchers' focus on the 18-30 age group is particularly relevant given this demographic's lower vegetable intake due to inadequate cooking skills.

 

How can the findings of this study be adapted or modified to be applicable in different cultural, geographic, or socio-economic contexts outside of a major urban university setting in New Zealand?

What methods could be employed in future studies to assess the long-term impact of these educational tools on young adults' dietary habits and cooking skills?

Considering the limitations of the sample size, how can future research include a more diverse and representative sample of young adults to ensure a wider range of experiences and preferences are captured?

How can emerging technologies, such as mobile apps or virtual reality, be integrated into these educational tools to further enhance learning and engagement?

How do the new-age methods of learning cooking skills (like videos and digital recipe cards) compare in effectiveness to more traditional methods, such as in-person cooking classes or printed cookbooks?

What behavioral change techniques, apart from the educational tools used in this study, could be effective in promoting vegetable-centric cooking among young adults?

How can nutritional education be more effectively integrated into these cooking resources without overwhelming the young adult audience?

What kind of feedback mechanisms can be implemented to continually adapt and improve the cooking resources based on user experiences?

How do socio-economic factors influence the accessibility and practicality of the proposed vegetable-centric cooking practices for young adults?

 

How can these cooking resources be made more culturally inclusive to cater to the diverse dietary habits and preferences of young adults from different backgrounds?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

In general, the manuscript presented relevant results on the chosen subject. However, the authors state “… the sample remains small and non-representative of the wider population…”.

In my opinion, if the sampling is not representative, the discussions and conclusions about this work cannot be considered. Please explain further the representation addressed in this research.

The statement “Thus, future research is needed to further explore the relative effectiveness of different types of cooking with vegetable education as well as examine the effectiveness of the videos and recipe cards designed in our study.” creates confusion among readers, since this study, when evaluating recipes and videos, contributes to the effectiveness of this type of advertising, or not?

Furthermore, according to the objectives listed below by the authors:

1. Understand the barriers and enablers faced by young adults when cooking with vegetables.

2. Understand what format and characteristics of recipes (written and videos) appeal to young adults.

3. Design and develop user-centered written recipes and video recipes that address barriers, are salient, engaging and relevant.to young adults to help motivate them to cook with vegetables.

4. Test the acceptability of these cooking videos.

There is no discussion and clear conclusion about the results obtained that could answer these items. The discussion and conclusion of the work must answer these four items.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thanks for the opportunity to review this manuscript. I believe that research makes a significant contribution to how recipe cards contribute to motivation to cooking. I have some comments that could improve the manuscript:

I think the authors could review in the introduction how recipe cards have contributed to people's behavioral changes, for example in adopting more sustainable diets or improving cooking skills. Some studies could be mentioned in this regard. The concept of recipe cards should be established in this section

With respect to the focus group (n = 15), the limitations must be considered since the majority of the participants were students, and some of them have not yet joined the world of work and the change in lifestyles.

The results could be synthesized, since there are several subsections that limit the reading of this section.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In the manuscript (sustainability-2780971), authors explore a qualitative study on sustainable culinary skills for fostering vegetable-centric cooking practices among young adults for health and environmental benefits. Overall, this topic has scientific significance and the manuscript has readability. Therefore, I think the manuscript can be accepted and published in Sustainability after a minor revision. To ensure the publication readiness of the manuscript, the following issue needs to be addressed:

(1) Keywords

-- Should be “vegetable-centric cooking” rather “cooking”.

-- It is suggested that the authors add the keyword "protease hydrolysate".

(2) Introduction:

--Page 1, line 35: Should be “for protecting” rather “protective”.

--Page 1, line 36: Should be “reducing environmental impact” rather “reduces environmental impact”.

--Page 1, line 42-46: With this transition such as leaving school, … and/or the availability of convenient and cheap (take-away) options. Suggest the authors to reorganize this sentence.

--Page 2, line 58: Should be “researches have” rather “research has”.

--Page 2, line 64-65: Should be “Liu et al. [37] provided” rather “Liu et al., [37]provided”.

(3) Materials and Methods

--Page 3, line 83-84: Should be “capabilities, opportunities, and motivation” rather “Capabilities, Opportunities, and Motivation”.

--Page 4, line 143: Should be “were” rather “was”.

(4) Results

--Page 5, line 196-197: Should be “to cooking, enjoying it, and experimenting with new recipes” rather “to cooking, to enjoying it, and to experimenting with new recipes”.

--Page 6, line 211: Should be “save” rather “saves”.

--Page 7, Figure 1: The quality of Figure 1 is too poor to see the contents clearly. It is suggested that the author re-draw it so that readers can better read and understand the content of the manuscript.

--Page 8, Table 2: It is suggested that the author modify the table so that it can be displayed on one page.

(5) Discussion

--Page 16, line 488: Should be “[4-7].” rather “[4] [5] [6] [7].”.

--Page 16, line 488: Should be “Adhering to dietary guidelines has” rather “Adhering to dietary guidelines have”.

(6) Conclusions

--Page 18, line 575-576: These suggestions included having the recipe in the caption or comments for easy reference, using descriptive titles to set expectations, and rewording serving size descriptions to be more inclusive. Suggest the authors to reorganize this sentence.

(7) Funding:

-- Authors are advised to check this section carefully.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Moderate editing of English language required.

Author Response

Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

I would like to thank you for the revisions made to the text, as all the research carried out is now much better explained.