Survey data on heterogeneity in consumers' food choice in eastern India.

A consumer survey was conducted in eastern India in 2017 to understand the heterogeneity of consumers' food choice. Face-to-face interviews were conducted among urban and rural consumers from low- and middle-income households in Odisha and West Bengal, eastern India, using a structured questionnaire. A multi-stage sampling procedure was implemented with stratified random sampling as the first stage and systematic sampling as the second stage.

Unraveling heterogeneity of consumers' food choice: Implications for nutrition interventions in eastern India.

Understanding heterogeneity of consumers' food choice is critical in formulating tailored nutrition interventions. To illustrate this, we survey urban and rural consumers from low- and middle-income households in eastern India to unravel five sources of heterogeneity (5 Ws) in gastronomic systems that affect diets: (i) socioeconomic characteristics of the target population (); (ii) food environments (); (iii) eating occasions (); (iv) consumed dishes (); and (v) ingredient attributes and consumer attitudes towards food (). Diets in eastern India are predominantly starch-based featuring infrequent intake of fruits and vegetables.

Capturing diversity and cultural drivers of food choice in eastern India.

The EAT-Lancet Commission urgently called for "planetary health diets". The success of encouraging dietary shifts, however, crucially hinges on people, and more specifically on consumers' culture, context, socioeconomic status, food environment, attitudes, perceptions, beliefs, and behavior towards food choice. In India, enhanced food availability and accessibility do not readily lead to improved nutritional status.

Expert elicitation database capturing diversity and cultural drivers of food choice and nutritional implications in eastern India.

Two expert elicitation workshops were conducted in 2017 to capture the diversity and cultural drivers of food choice of low- and middle- income households in the states of West Bengal and Odisha in eastern India. Experts representing the fields of nutrition, home science, food technology, and food service industry were invited to participate. Following the "gastronomic systems research" framework, the food experts determined the eating occasions, dishes and ingredients that would culturally define the target population in their respective states.

Rice quality: How is it defined by consumers, industry, food scientists, and geneticists?

Background: Quality is a powerful engine in rice value chain upgrading. However, there is no consensus on how "rice quality" should be defined and measured in the rice sector.

Scope And Approach: We adopt a Lancasterian definition of rice quality as a bundle of intrinsic and extrinsic attributes.