A professor at N.C. State is working to increase the awareness of food safety by utilizing social media outlets which will empower citizens to take action.
Benjamin Chapman, a professor at N.C. State and a food safety extension specialist, asked the readers of his blog to take photos and post them on sites, such as Instagram or Twitter, to make people more conscious of the safety of their food.
“What I’m really interested in is opening up and increasing the dialogue around food safety, and I want to know what food safety means to people,” Chapman said. “It could be good things and bad things, and I’m really just interested in what the discussion is.”
Chapman once had a mentor who performed a project that rated the cleanliness of restrooms in bars and restaurants, which he said was one of the experiences that inspired his idea.
“All of this seeps into this idea of being able to capture things through the lens and being able to understand more about the situation,” Chapman said.
Chapman said he began a blog with a colleague about seven years ago called barfblog. It emphasizes food safety while interacting with social media users about safe-food production guidelines.
Chapman said that through this project, researchers of public health could better understand the people’s perceptions surrounding food safety and how it may be contrary to the assessments made by science.
“If more people talk about food safety that, in turn, puts more pressure in the food system to do a better job,” Chapman said. “Instead of not talking about the good, the bad and the ugly, I just hope this raises the consciousness of food safety and it gets people involved and engaged.”
Tayyab Hussain, a junior in chemical engineering at N.C. State, said that he felt he didn’t know a lot about safe cooking techniques or what food safety was really about.
“I don’t think it’s a concern that is on a lot of people’s minds because they would rather ignore problems that they don’t have to worry about” Hussain said.
Hussain said that he feels that food safety is a topic that he would like to know more about and that it is an important discussion to have.
According to Chapman, the Citizen Food Safety Project is just an experiment right now. However, in time, he hopes it will gain popularity through social networking sites. Chapman said his goal is to engage more people about food safety, whether it be at home or in a public restaurant.
