Kudos to Bailey Norwood and Susan Murray at Oklahoma State who have keep the Food Demand Survey (FooDS) alive and well. In the August 2017 edition of FooDS, they asked a series of questions related to consumers knowledge about food. The results are fascinating.
First, they sought to weigh in on the claim that went viral last month: that 7% of consumers thought chocolate milk came from brown cows. In this month's FooDS, they found only 1.6% of the American public held this belief when given various options for how chocolate milk is made.
Read the whole report for more interesting findings, such as:
- 23% of respondents thought gluten as a preservative or additive to make bread whiter;
- 79% correctly knew how soy milk is made;
- 18% think the sun revolves around the earth (yes, you read that right);
- 95%+ correctly identified broccoli as a vegetable and beef as coming from cows;
- only 28% correctly knew that Trump likes his steaks well done (a plurality thought he likes it medium rare);
- 15% thought I was the secretary of agriculture (no I didn't put them up to this; Sonny Perdue was picked by 37% of respondents and Michael Pollan by 29%)
- 99% of respondents said they took their answers to the previous questions seriously.