Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.
Background and Objectives In October 1993, British Market Research Bureau International (BMRB) was commissioned to conduct a study for MAFF amongst the vegetarian population of Great Britain. This research was required to recruit a representative sample of 400 vegetarians and investigate their overall diet and intake of certain dietary components. The key objectives were as follows: To obtain accurate and detailed consumption data by coding in such a way as to allow extraction of mean and extreme consumption of individual foods. To identify vegetarians who are consumers of pulses, nuts, legumes, vegetables and fruit. To provide information on the age, gender, social class and regional profile of vegetarians. Participants in the survey were asked to answer a questionnaire about their dietary habits, including reasons for becoming vegetarian, dietary changes since becoming vegetarian and consumption and purchasing habits for different fruits and vegetables. They were then asked to keep a seven day weighed record of their food consumption. This involved weighing and recording in detail everything they ate and drank for seven days in a specially designed diary. On collection of the diary, a further interview was conducted which recorded details on the usage of mineral waters, dietary supplements, alternative protein sources and herbal teas.
Main Topics:
The dataset contains : (i) the seven day detailed record of the food and drink consumption in electronic format. The foods consumed during the survey have each been assigned an individual food code; names/descriptions are included. (ii) table (in an MS Access database and an alternative text form) of the questionnaire data together with coding frame information on most fields. Standard Measures The Social Class system of classifying households according to information on education history, occupational type and employment responsibilities of the chief income earner or head of the household - in this case the chief income earner was used, defined as the household member with <i>the largest income, whether from employment, pensions, state benefits, investments or any other source</i>. Social Class was used in order to provide discrimination between the type of respondents/ households which took part in the survey. Social Class is a system which produces one of six outcomes depending on the respondent interviewed - these are the well known A, B, C1, C2, D and E gradings. To summarise each group: A = Professional people, very senior management in business or commerce, or top-level civil servants. B = Middle management executives in large organisations, principal officers in local government and the civil service, top management or owners of small business concerns, educational and service establishments. C1 = Junior management, owners of small establishments, and all others in non-manual positions. C2 = All skilled manual workers, and those manual workers with responsibility for other people. D = All semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers, and apprentices and trainees to skilled workers. E = All those entirely dependent on the state long-term, through sickness, unemployment, old age, or other reasons, and all unemployed for over six months. N.B. Where an individual is retired, and/or the chief income earner is no longer alive, the occupation prior to retirement is used for social grading.
BMRB use <i>random location</i> sampling. A representative sample of Enumeration Distr
Face-to-face interview
Diaries
Physical measurements
