Cooking, recipe use and food habits of college students and nutrition educators

The purpose of this study was to revisit Lewin's gatekeeper theory to observe current food role patterns (cooking experience, recipe sources, and both daily food consumption choices and eating out) with contemporary groups of college students (n = 292) and of nutrition educators (n = 26). Male college students equalled female students in cooking ability, use of family as a prime recipe source, and frequency of eating out, while exhibiting different food consumption excesses and deficiencies. Package labels and the Internet were most frequently identified as recipe sources by college students. Nutritionists surpassed both male and female college students in most attributes.