Food Safety Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices among Bulgarian Young People ^†

Abstract

Background and objective: Providing a population with quality and safe food is one of the main public health problems worldwide. The aim of the present study was to assess the food safety knowledge, attitudes and self-reported food handling practices among a Bulgarian young population. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 60 young people from the Pleven region, Bulgaria, aged 20–29. A pre-tested structured questionnaire was used to collect data on the purchase, storage, preparation, culinary processing and serving of food in a home environment, and also on the demographic profile of the respondents. IBM SPSS v.25 software was applied with a level of statistical significance set at p < 0.05. Results: This study showed that a high proportion of the participants had good levels of knowledge and practices for culinary processing of food—73.9%, food preparation—68.7% and food serving—67.2%. More than half of the participants (59.5–58%) gave correct answers about buying and storing food at home. The highest score was established for the shelf life of products—0.8; rapid cooling of animal foods—0.74; washing fresh fruits and vegetables before consumption—0.94; keeping dishes and utensils in the kitchen clean—0.89; adequate heat treatment of food and quality of drinking water—0.75. A lower percentage of correct answers was found about buying organic food and eating in front of a computer and a mobile device—0.38–0.42. Discussion: The outcome of the survey showed that knowledge, attitude and practice among young people to ensure quality and safe food were at a good level. For young people, educational programs can be developed related to the purchase of organic foods and the optimization of the digital health and food safety interaction.