One of the people who participated in the survey wrote a short comment expressing his understanding of the need to increase the level of the culture of consumption between people, as illustrated in the next table (table 13). People were asked whether they have a clear understanding or plan for consumption: 6.5% stated that they have benefited from using qualified specialist recommendations, so good for them, but usually people use specialists’ knowledge only in extreme situations: in the event of illness, weight, or age-related problems. Another 7.5% use the recommendations of nonqualified specialists, but it was not known if those people were supervised by a doctor. In this case, it is highly important for both reasons: increasing the efficiency of the chosen system and preventing a patient from suffering harm. If the answer were positive, it would be possible to sum up people from the first question and people with a positive answer from the second question. The astonishing result was that 73 per cent people, who do not have a diet plan, truly believe that they are buying healthy food; the effort itself is good, but unfortunately reality is giving us examples that generally healthy food is not that healthy, and the knowledge about it is limited. The author held a micro-interview with two people, who did not participate in the interview or survey, but claimed to be specialists in dietology. They were asked to answer the question: which element needs to be consumed with a fresh carrot to gain the maximum benefits from beta-carotene? The right answer is fat, or oil. Those two respondents did not answer correctly.
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Table 12. Question 13. Do you have a clear understanding or plan about which products suit whom, and what you need to buy? |
% of |
Number of |
|
|
Respondents |
Respondents |
||
|
Yes, I have a clear calorie-based food programme designed by a qualified specialist. |
|
6.48% |
7 |
|
Yes, I have a clear calorie-based food programme designed by someone who is not a qualified specialist. |
|
7.41% |
8 |
|
No, I do not have a plan, but I am trying to buy generally healthy and suitable food. |
|
73.15% |
79 |
|
No, it is too changeable, complicated and unpredictable to be done. |
|
12.96% |
14 |
|
Number of respondents |
108 |
||
Table 12 Question about consumers qualification. Own data.
The question 14 is: if you proposed to use a computer-based programme to optimise your consumption in a flexible way, would you consider this to be a good idea?
No-30%; Try-5%; Yes-65%.
Figure 5 Answers for question 14.
The final question was created to recognize the basic reaction of people to the idea of using a special computer programme for planning their meals. Everyone who participated both in the interviews and the survey had no special introduction to the subject, except for the question in the survey itself, which was especially designed in a neutral tone, to illuminate any judgmental reactions to the last question. The possible answers for this question were: Yes, the idea sounds promising; No. I do not like the idea of planning; and the third option was a frame for an open question. By using this option, some people agreed with the idea, others disagrees, and another five wanted to give it a try. Some people who gave a negative answer were actually worried about the ability of the programme to incorporate all of their individual needs. The people who agreed to accept the benefits of such a programme actually had only a general model of how it works. Basically, they voted for an idea of planning mixed with a call for the special tool for doing this.
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