# Data from an online survey on lentil consumption practices in France in 2022

Aïssétou Lounayo Yabré, Jeanne-Marie Membré

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Aïssétou Lounayo Yabré, Jeanne-Marie Membré. Data from an online survey on lentil consumption practices in France in 2022. Food and Ecological Systems Modelling Journal, 2022, 3, pp.1-7. 10.3897/fmj.3.91025. hal-03798490

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# Data from an online survey on lentil consumption practices in France in 2022

Aïssétou Lounayo Yabré‡, Jeanne-Marie Membré‡

‡ Oniris, INRAE, Secalim, Nantes, France

Corresponding author: Jeanne-Marie Membré (jeanne-marie.membre@inrae.fr)

Academic editor: Laurent Guillier

Received: 29 Jul 2022 | Accepted: 27 Sep 2022 | Published: 05 Oct 2022

Citation: Yabré AL, Membré J-M (2022) Data from an online survey on lentil consumption practices in France in 2022. Food and Ecological Systems Modelling Journal 3: e91025. https://doi.org/10.3897/fmj.3.91025

## Abstract

## Background

In a context of transition towards plant-based protein diet, a survey aiming to collect the lentil consumer practices in France in 2022 was performed. There were 607 responses to the survey, of which a large majority (556) were lentil consumers. Amongst those, 283 people indicated that they currently eat more lentils than 5 years ago.

## New information

The questions were related to type of lentil meals, frequency of consumption, type of preparation, storage duration once cooked etc. (Table 1). There were also general questions on age, gender and region. The survey may be used to obtain information on what type of lentils is consumed (and how often) in France, how it is cooked and stored. This information may be then plugged into a food safety risk assessment to refine, for instance, a microbial exposure model.

In particular, of the 21 questions asked, four were about possible leftovers and their duration and two about cooling practices for hot meals. This information is crucial for lentils because consumer information about legumes, especially those prepared at home, is still scarce.
<caption>Table 1.</caption>

List of the 21 questions asked in the survey. The response options are provided in the 2nd document (pdf). The responses to the questions are given in the dataset (csv document).

<table><thead><tr><td>Number</td><td>Question</td><td>Type of responses</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1</td><td>Do you eat lentils or meals based on lentils?</td><td>Single choice</td></tr><tr><td>2</td><td>If yes, why?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>If not, why?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>4</td><td>In the last 5 years, your consumption of lentils has increased, remained the same or decreased?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>5</td><td>Which types of lentils do you buy?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>6</td><td>How often do you eat lentils?</td><td>Double array: Single choice per type of lentils</td></tr><tr><td>7</td><td>If you consume raw lentils, what is the type of preparation?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>8</td><td>If hot meals, how do you cook them?</td><td>Multiple choices</td></tr><tr><td>9</td><td>If cold meals, how do you cook them?</td><td>Multiple choices</td></tr><tr><td>10</td><td>If you cook hot meals, what is the time of cooking?</td><td>Free response</td></tr><tr><td>11</td><td>Which type of lentils do you buy?</td><td>Multiple choices</td></tr><tr><td>12</td><td>Do you eat the ready-to-eat meals (bought not cooked at home) in several smaller servings?</td><td>Double array: Single choice per type of lentil meals</td></tr><tr><td>13</td><td>Do you eat the home meals in several smaller servings?</td><td>Double array: Single choice per type of lentil meals</td></tr><tr><td>14</td><td>If you eat a ready-to-eat meal in several times, what is the storage duration?</td><td>Double array: Single choice per type of lentil meals</td></tr><tr><td>15</td><td>If you eat home meals in several times, what is the storage duration?</td><td>Double array: Single choice per type of lentil meals</td></tr><tr><td>16</td><td>How do you cool down the cooked meals before putting them in the refrigerator?</td><td>Single choice</td></tr><tr><td>17</td><td>How long do you leave the cooked meals to cool down before putting them in the refrigerator?</td><td>Single choice</td></tr><tr><td>18</td><td>What is your diet?</td><td>Single choice</td></tr><tr><td>19</td><td>What is your gender?</td><td>Single choice</td></tr><tr><td>20</td><td>How old are you?</td><td>Free response</td></tr><tr><td>21</td><td>In which region do you live?</td><td>Single choice</td></tr></tbody></table>

## Keywords

consumption survey, consumer behaviour, diet preference, microbiological risk, food safety, lentils
# Introduction

Modern agriculture contributes to global warming, particularly by releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Indeed, greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) from the agricultural sector account for about 30% of global emissions, with a large portion coming from the livestock sector (Perignon et al. 2019).

Our current food system also has significant health impacts. For example, the increase in the risk of diseases (cardiovascular, obesity, type 2 diabetes) linked to a diet rich in animal protein has been often highlighted. Thus, many scientific experts, nutritionists, farmers and consumers are sounding the alarm: our agricultural and food system has reached a dead end. The stakes are high, adopting a dual transition: protein and agroecological (Uthayakumar and Loustau 2019).

In that context, legumes hold a prominent place. Pulses (chickpeas, lentils, beans) belong to the Fabaceae family and their seeds play an important role in the human diet. They are a very important source of vegetable proteins, polysaccharides (fibre, starch) and micronutrients (vitamins, trace minerals). In the next few years, lentil consumption will probably increase significantly due to a change in eating habits by consumers, who are increasingly turning to proteins of plant origin and also to organic food. According to Nielsen (2019), flexitarianism (lower consumption of animal proteins) is becoming the primary diet of the French population.

However, while facing this protein transition favouring a higher consumption of lentils, too little is still known on the potential public health risk associated with this food product. Due to this, it was considered as urgent to conduct a more in-depth analysis of types of consumption behaviour in order to assess, in a second phase, the health risks (microbiological and chemical) associated with these current and future consumption patterns.

# General description

**Purpose:** In the context of transition towards plant-based protein diet, this survey aimed to collect the lentil consumer practices, in France, in 2022. A national survey in France was performed in 2014 (Dubuisson et al. 2019); however, to integrate the increasing demand for legumes, an additional survey was necessary. Interestingly, the survey revealed that amongst the 556 responders consuming lentils, 283 indicated that they currently eat more lentils than 5 years ago.

**Additional information:** The survey was created using Google Forms. It contained 21 questions (Table 1).

The survey was launched from 5 May 2022 to 8 June 2022. The link was sent to friends, colleagues from INRAE (Rennes, Nantes) and Oniris (Nantes), students from University of
Avignon, Saclay (AgroParisTech), Toulouse (Mirail, Toulouse School of Economics) and Angers (BTS Agronomie, production végétales).

A total of 607 responses was received. At this stage, no data analysis was performed, meaning that the dataset is raw.

The dataset includes the 607 responses provided to the survey (csv format). Besides the dataset, a document including the questions asked (pdf format) is provided.

The data underpinning the analysis reported in this paper are deposited at "data.gouv.fr" at https://doi.org/10.57745/KMGODH

## Sampling methods

**Sampling description:** The survey was created on internet (Google Forms) and circulated to friends and colleagues, all around France. The answers were based on declarative information. As such, the sample is not representative of the general population. The responders came from 12 different regions in France, belong to a range age from 18 to 91 and were mainly females (442 females, 154 males, 11 unknown gender).

Google Forms guarantee that they operate under the same strict privacy and data protection commitments as other Google Cloud enterprise services. In more details, Forms are cloud-native, eliminating the need for local files and reducing the risk to personal devices. All files or created in Forms are encrypted in transit and at rest. The security, privacy and compliance settings of Google Forms are regularly audited independently.

Regarding more specifically the survey and the data collected, security measures were put in place to protect the data, including advanced malware protections. Participants' data have been fully anonymised.

## Geographic coverage

**Description:** An online survey on lentil consumer practices was carried out in France in 2022. The region of survey responders is provided in the last column of the csv dataset.

## Temporal coverage

**Living time period:** The survey was launched from 5th of May 2022 to 8th June 2022.

## Usage licence

**Usage licence:** Creative Commons Public Domain Waiver (CC-Zero)
**IP rights notes:** The dataset obtained the following licence for use: https://www.etalab.gouv.fr/licence-ouverte-open-licence

## Data resources

**Data package title:** Online survey lentil consumer practices 2022

**Resource link:** https://doi.org/10.57745/KMGODH

**Number of data sets:** 1

**Data set name:** Dataset_English_Final version_underscoreaulieuvirgule.tab

**Character set:** text/tab-separated-values

**Download URL:** https://doi.org/10.57745/KMGODH/ROOPGS

**Data format:** csv

**Data format version:** V1

**Description:** The dataset includes the 607 responses provided to the survey (csv format).

<table><thead><tr><td>Column label</td><td>Column description</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Do you eat lentils or meals based on lentils?</td><td>Yes/No</td></tr><tr><td>If yes, why?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>If no, why?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>In the last 5 years, your consumption of lentils has increased, remained the same or decreased?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>Which types of lentils do you buy?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>How often do you eat lentils (Raw lentils)?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>How often do you eat lentils (Canned lentils)?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>How often do you eat lentils (Frozen lentils)?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>How often do you eat lentils (Lentil salad)?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>If you consume raw lentils, what is the type of preparation?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>If hot meals, how do you cook them?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>If cold meals, how do you cook them?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>If you cook hot meals, what is the time of cooking?</td><td>free text</td></tr><tr><td>Which type of lentils do you buy?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table><tr><td>Do you eat the ready-to-eat meals (canned lentils) in several times?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>Do you eat the ready-to-eat meals (lentil salad) in several times?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>Do you eat the ready-to-eat meals (frozen lentils) in several times?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>Do you eat the home meals (hot meals) in several times?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>Do you eat the home meals (cold meals as lentil salad) in several times?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>If you eat a ready-to-eat meal (canned lentils) in several times, what is the storage duration?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>If you eat a ready-to-eat meal in several times (lentil salad), what is the storage duration?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>If you eat a ready-to-eat meal (frozen lentils) in several times, what is the storage duration?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>If you eat home meals (hot meals) in several times, what is the storage duration?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>If you eat home meals (cold meals as lentil salad) in several times, what is the storage duration?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>How do you cool down the cooked meals before putting them in the refrigerator?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>How long do you leave the cooked meals to cool down before putting them in the refrigerator?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>What is your diet?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>What is your gender?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr><tr><td>How old are you?</td><td>Free text</td></tr><tr><td>In which region do you live?</td><td>Multiple choice</td></tr></table>

## Additional information

It is important to keep in mind that as most of responders were consumers of lentils (556/607), an over-estimate of the percentage of lentil consumer in France is expected. Consequently, the dataset could be used to obtain an estimate on type of lentil meals, type of preparation, storage duration once cooked etc., but not to estimate the overall French rate of lentil consumption.

## Author contributions

**Aïssétou Yabré**: Conceptualisation, Methodology, Software, Writing- Original draft preparation

**Jeanne-Marie Membré**: Investigation, Writing- Reviewing and Editing, Funding.
References

* Dubuisson C, Dufour A, Carrillo S, Drouillet-Pinard P, Havard S, Volatier JL (2019) The Third French Individual and National Food Consumption (INCA3) Survey 2014-2015: method, design and participation rate in the framework of a European harmonization process. Public Health Nutr 22 (4): 584-600. [In English]. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1368980018002896

* Nielsen (2019) Typologie nutrition. Web site URL: https://www.lsa-conso.fr/56-des-francais-ont-un-comportement-alimentaire-specifique,331221

* Perignon M, Barré T, Gazan R, Vieux F, Micard V, Amiot M, Darmon N (2019) Prise en compte de la biodisponibilité des nutriments lors de l'identification de régimes alimentaires plus durables: la consommation de viande est-elle toujours à réduire ? Cahiers de Nutrition et de Diététique 54 (6): 336-346. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cnd.2019.06.004

* Uthayakumar T, Loustau H (2019) Pulse fiction: pour une transition agricole et alimentaire durable. Web article URL: https://www.wwf.fr/sites/default/files/doc-2022-02/WWF_PULSE_FICTION_2022_0.pdf