Preliminary study: Exploring students’ knowledge and attitudes about food safety to improve STEM literacy

• Main Authors: Martini, Erman, Sanjaya, I. G. M.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Attitudes; Bivariate analysis; Fast food; Food additives; Food processing industry; Food products; Food safety; Industrial development; Lipids; Natural resources; Oxidation; Processing industry; Raw materials; Shelf life; Spoilage; Students
• ISSN: 0094-243X; 1551-7616
• DOI: 10.1063/5.0148409

The availability of abundant natural resources in Indonesia makes the prospect of the food processing industry wide open. The development of the food processing industry by utilizing domestic raw materials has been carried out to produce products that have added value, especially ready-to-eat and practical products. In the process of processing food ingredients to become food products, it will always be related to the use of food additives. The use of food additives does have several advantages, such as: reducing product spoilage and extending the shelf life of food, preventing the formation of lipid oxidation products, and others. The use of food additives in the food production process needs to be known together, both by producers and by consumers. Violations related to its use can harm society. The purpose of this study was to explore students’ prior knowledge and attitudes regarding food safety. The respondents were 72 students from a state university in East Java. The method used is a survey, in which respondents are asked to fill out a questionnaire consisting of 36 statements. The results of calculations with Cronbach’s Alpha obtained sufficient instrument reliability with a score of more than 0.7 and determination of the validity of the instrument with Bivariate Pearson there are 100% of the statements are valid. The survey results show that from 34 positive statements, 100% of students agreed and strongly agreed with the statements given, while for 2 negative statements, only 23.5% disagreed with the statement that foodborne illness was common, and as many as 88, 3% of respondents stated that they often consume fast food or packaged food products. This shows that the knowledge possessed by the respondents has not been fully used to make the right decisions.