A Study on University Student's Perception of Food Safety

The present study compared the perception of food safety between students majoring in Food Science and Nutrition and other students who are ordinary food consumers. The importance of factors related to food safety was high in order of pesticide residue (45%), food additives (24%), food pathogens (15%), GM foods (7%), antibiotics (4%) and irradiated foods (4%), and no significant difference was observed according to major(p less than 0.10). Particularly with regard to irradiated food, students majoring in Food Science and Nutrition replied 'no hamful' (21%), 'harmful' (58%) or 'not sure' (21%), showing that more than half of them thought that irradiated food is harmful