Home-produced foods may be affected by local contaminations in soil and water. Information about consumption of home-produced foods is essential in many exposure assessments. There is a lack of information about quantities consumed, as well as proportion of food that are home-produced. The lack of information force decision makes to make decisions with a weak scientific basis.
In this study, a self-reported questionnaire was used, including the following food items; home-grown vegetables, fruit and berries as well as self-picked berries and mushrooms, self-caught fish, game as well as egg and dairy products. The aim of the study was to collect self-reported data of how often and how much are the different home-produced food items are consumed and how much of the total consumption are home-produced respective bought in stores.
The study area is in south eastern Sweden since there are a large number of contaminated glass works sites in this area and our previous studies show that elevated metal concentrations can be found in many garden soils. The questionnaire was sent out to 3000 randomly selected individuals in the municipalities with a population of less than 20.000 inhabitants in Kronoberg, Kalmar and Jönköping counties in south-eastern Sweden. It was also distributed to 3000 individuals near lakes and streams close to glass works. In total, 17% answered the questionnaire, even though the answering frequency varied depending on question.
This presentation focuses on home-produced vegetables, fruit and berries and mushrooms. The home-produced vegetable that was eaten in largest quantities was potatoes, fruit was apple and the most picked wild berries were blueberry and lingonberry. Besides estimating consumed quantities, the respondents were also asked to estimate the proportion of their total consumption of different food items that was home-produced, in opposite to the rest that was bought in a food store. Often in exposure assessments a default value of 10% is assumed. In this study, the average fraction of home-produced potatoes, other root vegetables, leafy vegetables and other vegetables were 32% (median = 20%), 24% (median = 10%), 20% (median = 10%) respective 20% (median = 10%). The average fraction of home-produced fruit, berries and mushrooms were 22% (median=10%), 52% (median=50%) respective 59% (median 70%).
The data can be used in quantitative exposure assessment. The large number of respondents makes it possible to characterize variability in consumption of home-produced food items which makes use in probabilistic risk assessment possible.