Considerations Regarding the Use of Global Survey Questions 

Prepared for the Consumer Expenditures Survey Methods Workshop, December 8-9, 2010 

Paul Beatty

National Center for Health Statistics

 For many survey purposes, desired data points can be generated by asking single 

questions. However, for more complex data needs, what we really want to know must be 

obtained indirectly or through multiple questions. For example, we may be interested in how 

many total calories respondents consume in a week, but the information it is unlikely to be 

known in that form. Data of any real validity would most likely be obtained by constructing it 

from smaller pieces of information, such as reports of foods that were eaten at particular times, 

or even estimates of calories consumed in shorter time periods. 

Yet many behavioral questionnaires take a relatively head-on approach, asking for 

information that requires very complex recall and judgments, often covering broad subject 

matter. It is reasonable to ask whether such “global” questions can be adequately answered, 

even if rough estimates (as opposed to recalled information) would be acceptable for our data 

needs. Concerns about the accuracy of such responses have led to a number of studies 

considering whether “decomposition” into simpler questions offers improvements (e.g., Belli, 

Schwarz, Singer, and Talarico, 2000, and see also Tourangeau, Rips and Rasinski, 2000, pp. 95-

96). The reverse consideration, that we should explore the feasibility of asking fewer questions 

encompassing more conceptual territory, seems to be rarely considered, at least from a data 

quality perspective. Methodologists are more likely to assume that we are asking too much 

within single questions to get valid data, than that we are inefficiently spreading our resources 

too thinly over many questions. 

 In that sense, the Consumer Expenditure Surveys program is investigating global 

questions in a different manner than is usually done: rather than asking whether we can improve 

validity by breaking down large questions, the consideration here is whether we can retain 

validity by consolidating them. Obviously there are very good reasons for such an investigation: 

if feasible, global questions have the potential to reduce costs and burden. But would such 

questions have acceptable levels of accuracy? The answer to this is not straightforward and 
depends a great deal upon the specific questions asked. However, in the course of this paper, I 

hope to lay the groundwork for several conclusions: 

• Global questions of the sort being considered here are unlikely to yield responses that are 

literally correct—that is, they will probably be answered through broad estimation 

strategies. However:

o The quality of responses to global questions could vary a great deal depending 

upon the question and the subject matter domain, and 

 

o Such responses could nevertheless be more

 

accurate than data produced from 

more specific questions in the same domain—depending upon some key 

characteristics of those more specific questions and the response processes they 

invoke 

• Some relatively straightforward laboratory investigations could provide a great deal of 

information about memory and response strategies, which could be informative about the 

relative advantages of global and specific questions 

• Ideally, responses to the questions should be validated by external data, although such 

validation has methodological complications that should be addressed carefully. 

I will lead to these conclusions in a somewhat roundabout way—first by reviewing some 

research I have done on related topics, then attempting to reconcile it with earlier research that 

might explain some findings. Then I will outline some steps forward for additional research 

related to the Consumer Expenditure Surveys. 

The initial case against global questions 

The potential downside of global questions became obvious in the course of conducting 

numerous evaluations in the cognitive laboratory, several of which involved questions about 

food consumption intended for the National Health Interview Survey (partially reported in 

Beatty, Fowler and Cosenza, 2006). The questions covered several different types of food (e.g., 

desserts, cereal, and others), but for purposes of illustration let’s consider one particular example, 

regarding cheese consumption: 

• During the past 30 days, how many times did you eat cheese, including cheese as snacks, 

and cheese in sandwiches, burgers, lasagna, pizza, or casseroles? Do not count cream 

cheese.

 
In cognitive laboratory testing, many participants freely admitted that their responses were very 

broad estimates or guesses, and when probed to think further, participants generally remembered 

additional instances of eating that had not figures into their original responses. Furthermore, 

breaking the question into components seemed to help: participants were much more confident 

in their answers when responding regarding particular sub-domains (e.g., cheese on sandwiches, 

cheese mixed into other foods, and cheese as snacks). 

 Subsequent split-ballot experiments compared responses to global questions with 

responses to multiple specific “decomposed” questions, based on sub-domains as described 

above: 

• During the last 30 days, how many times have you eaten cheese on a sandwich, including 

burgers? 

• During the last 30 days, how many times have you eaten cheese in lasagna, pizza, 

casseroles, or mixed in with other dishes? 

• During the last 30 days, how many times have you eaten cheese as a snack or appetizer?

The specific questions matched as closely as possible the words in the global questions, except 

that they spread the material over multiple questions. Consistent with cognitive interview 

findings, the more specific questions yielded higher behavioral reports: global questions yielded 

a mean report of 13.9 times eating cheese, whereas multiple questions covering the same domain 

yielded reports of 19.0 times eating cheese, a difference that was significant at the 0.01 level 

(and similar patterns were observed for other sets of global and specific food consumption 

questions). Presumably, one of the dangers of global questions is that lead to incomplete reports, 

for several reasons: too much information may be presented at once, overwhelming working 

memory; and, respondents may spend less time recalling pertinent information. Thus a plausible 

argument could be made that the global questions produce under-reports, and the specific 

questions are more accurate. 

Furthermore, behavior coding of the interviews revealed that several indicators of 

problems were more prevalent with the global questions than any of the more specific 

questions—and that respondent performance improved as they answered more questions (see 

Table 1, below). 
Table 1

 Global Spec1 Spec2 Spec3 

: Behavior coding of global and specific questions regarding cheese consumption 

Inadequate initial response 15.9 9.9 8.3 3.1 

Probes used during administration 13.7 7.8 6.3 2.1 

Respondent requested help/repeat of question 19.1 15.1 3.1 2.1 

(all expressed as %; most signif at p<.05)

Counter-arguments regarding global questions 

However, specific questions have their disadvantages—most prominently time. In the 

study mentioned above, it took nearly twice as long on average to obtain answers to three 

specific questions as to one global question. Furthermore, some of the apparent advantages seen 

in behavior coding proved to be illusory. Whether we are asking one question or three, we are 

still generating one data point—thus, it might be more appropriate to consider the cumulative

rates of “undesirable” behaviors needed to arrive at those points. When comparing global and 

specific questions in that manner, their performances are not significantly different. It takes 

about the same amount of probing to yield a response in either case.

 The critical criterion is accuracy. If the specific questions are significantly closer to 

reality, and that precision is analytically significant, then the increased cost of multiple questions 

might be justifiable. On the other hand, if the global questions are more accurate, or any error 

they introduce is tolerable, then it would seem to be preferable to enjoy the efficiency that global 

questions offer. But to make that determination, we need more data on the relative accuracy of 

each.

Validating data from global and specific questions 

 In a subsequent study (Beatty and Maitland, 2008) we attempted to provide such 

validation data through another split-ballot design with a diary component. The experiment used

the same food consumption questions, and also included an additional global question on 

physical activity (the alternative version was split into specific questions about walking, active 

chores, and more “deliberate” exercise). See the Appendix for the full texts of the questions. 

One important change from the versions of the questions presented previously was that it was 
necessary to change the reference period from 30 days to 3 days. Collecting validation data over 

a 30-day period was simply not possible. 

As a first step, participants in the study agreed to complete a 3-day web diary that 

recorded all food eaten and physical activities done on a daily basis. The diary was a somewhat 

simplified version of a web diary that had been collaboratively designed by researchers at several 

federal health agencies, with input from the contractor (SRBI) who carried out data collection. It 

included examples of the sort of information desired, progress screens, and various prompts. For 

example, after respondents submitted the food diary for each day, a prompt asked “Have you 

included all snacks, all side dishes you had with meals, and everything you added to the foods 

you ate?” After the respondent submitted the physical activity diary a prompt asked, “Have you 

included any time you walked for at least 10 minutes, any sports or active games you played, and 

any time you worked out or exercised?” In addition to the prompts, the diary was designed to 

facilitate recall by asking for entries related to breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. 

Respondents who completed the diary on three consecutive days were invited to 

participate in a follow-up telephone interview. Respondents to this interview received one of 

two questionnaire versions. Each version contained questions about food consumption 

(regarding cheese, cereal, pasta and rice, desserts, and oils) and physical activity. The 

questionnaire versions were constructed so that all respondents received global questions for 

some domains, and multiple, specific questions for others. To summarize a very complicated 

process, results from the web diary were carefully coded as a validity check of responses to the 

global and specific survey questions. 

Based on hypotheses from earlier studies, we expected the data to show several things. 

First, we expected that global questions would generally undercount behaviors relative to the 

diary reports. Second, we expected that decomposed questions would lead to reports that were 

closer to diary reports than the global questions. That is, if X represents the diary report, D 

represents reports from decomposed questions, and G represents reports from global questions, 

we generally expected reports frequencies in the following pattern: 

Low freq G D X High freq

 |---------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------| 
 To evaluate the accuracy of the global and decomposed questions, we computed the 

relative bias for each, defined as (survey response – diary response)/diary response. This 

provides a standardized measure of the disagreement between diary and survey measures overall. 

P-values were computed by two-tailed t-tests, exploring the hypothesis that the mean responses 

from the diary and from the interview are equal. 

In the case of the cheese questions, results were basically as expected: global questions 

strongly undercounted cheese relative to the diary; decomposed questions over-counted the 

diary, but not as strongly (p=.06). Decomposed questions similarly performed better when

asking about cereal (although in this case, the global question significantly over-counted 

consumption); and although the bias of decomposed questions regarding physical activity was 

slightly lower than the bias from global questions, both significantly undercounted relative to the 

diary. However, for three other sets of questions, the global items were less biased. The 

difference was not significant for questions about pasta and dessert, but was for questions about 

oil. 

Table 2: Bias for global and decomposed questions—original diary coding 

Domain Question type Bias relative to diary (%) 

Cheese Global -20.9*** 

 Decomposed 16.6* 

Physical activity Global -19.5** 

 Decomposed -14.5** 

Oil Global -16.9** 

 Decomposed - 25.1*** 

Cereal Global 21.4*** 

 Decomposed 6.8 

Pasta and rice Global 1.3 

 Decomposed 10.2 

Dessert Global -9.9 

 Decomposed 14.3 

*p<.1, **p<.05, ***p<.01 
Further muddling this picture is the fact that quantifying the coding diary data was 

complicated. Sometimes it was ambiguous whether a particular food or activity should be 

included, and other times it was unclear whether something should be counted one or more times 

(for example, two slices of pizza). Our initial coding scheme was liberal, accepting ambiguous 

items and counting them as many times as could be reasonably supported. However, given some 

concerns about the supportability of some of these decisions, we recoded data more 

conservatively, this time including only “clear cut” reports in the total counts. 

 An analysis using only the “clear cut” diary reports turns some of the original findings on 

their head. Global survey responses are not significantly different from the conservative diary 

estimates for three questions (cheese, pasta and dessert), whereas the multiple decomposed 

questions generate significant over-reports. And, although decomposed questions on physical 

activity and cereal did better than their global counterparts, the biases for global and decomposed 

questions were comparable (both were not significantly different from diary reports in the case of 

physical activity, and both were highly significant in the case of cereal). 

Table 3: Bias for global and decomposed questions—conservative diary coding 

Domain Question type Bias relative to diary (%) 

Cheese Global -10.8 

 Decomposed 22.5** 

Physical activity Global -9.1 

 Decomposed -0.4 

Cereal Global 40.6*** 

 Decomposed 29.5*** 

Pasta and rice Global 3.9 

 Decomposed 16.7* 

Dessert Global 5.6 

 Decomposed 28.7*** 

*p<.1, **p<.05, ***p<.01 

Note: new coding rules did not affect questions about oil 
Taken altogether, results are quite mixed. However, it is clear that the expected 

persistent advantage of multiple questions does not always materialize. In fact, global questions 

performed better than decomposed questions in a slight majority of the comparisons 

considered—but the results do not provide a clear slam-dunk either way. Six out of eleven 

global survey questions were not significantly biased compared to diary reports, but five were; 

conversely, five out of eleven decomposed question sets were not significantly biased compared 

to diary reports, but six were. In any case, support for our hypotheses was inconsistent. 

 

Reconciling these results with other research

Although our hypotheses were formed through observation of actual survey responses in 

the laboratory, several previous studies would not have supported them. For example, Belli et al. 

(2000) demonstrate that at least some of the time, global questions are superior to multiple 

questions because the latter produce over-reports due to double counting. Menon (1997) also 

demonstrated that decomposed questions are not necessarily better, and hypothesized that a 

critical distinction centers on the regularity of the behavior in question. The basic idea is that 

decomposing questions should have a positive effect for reports of irregular behaviors, where 

counting is the likely response strategy. Decomposed questions makes counting simpler because 

there are fewer events to remember, and each is likely to be more distinctive. However, if the 

questions ask about regular behaviors, decomposition can actually interfere with the response 

process: whereas a reasonable heuristic might be available for estimating the response to a 

global question, one might not be available to formulate answers to more specific questions. 

Although these studies are very useful, I have reservations about their applicability to 

most behavioral surveys, for several reasons. First, some of the examples considered in both 

studies are rather far-removed from the typical survey topics. Menon, for example, evaluates 

questions on the frequency of drinking water from public fountains and similarly banal events. 

Second, it is easy to understand why some of the specific questions proposed in these studies are 

more challenging than their global counterparts. In another of Menon’s examples, a global 

question about frequency of washing hair is broken down into specific questions about washing 

hair in the morning, before dates, before a party, and so on. For most people, the global question 

can be answered based on predictable patterns. The decomposed questions, rather than parsing 

the response task into more memorable components, arguably break the question into less
memorable events. Similarly, Belli et al. decompose a question about frequency of phone calls 

into questions about less memorable behavior, i.e., making local and long distance calls. But 

decomposition does not necessarily make a question’s frame of reference more esoteric. In some 

cases, it could parse a difficult question into manageable parts. Third, the response task 

regarding their global questions is often different than the global questions of concern to survey 

researchers, and certainly different than the CES. Whereas some of the global questions cited by 

Menon and others could be answered through episodic recall, I will suggest that most of the 

global questions we are concerned with could probably not be answered through literal 

remembering of events or amounts. Estimation that draws upon heuristics and semantic 

memory, and involving some degree of uncertainty (see Burton and Blair, 1991) will almost 

certainly be required.

Given that we are usually concerned with estimation processes rather than literal recall, it 

seems reasonable that response quality will largely be a function of whether question 

construction lines up optimally with the organization of respondent memories. In other words, 

there are likely to be questions where global question are better than their specific counterparts 

and vice-versa.

It might be possible to understand the data presented earlier in that light. Contrary to 

initial expectations, decomposed questions about desserts consistently did not perform as well as 

the global question they were drawn from. One possible explanation is that memories are readily 

accessible that make it possible to estimate patterns of “eating sweets,” whereas the information 

needed to estimate eating particular types of sweets is not as readily accessible. It is also 

possible that the subcategories of sweets (ice cream and frozen yogurt; cookies, cakes, pies and 

brownies; candy and chocolate) are not clearly distinct, leading to cognitive burden and perhaps 

double-counting. 

In contrast, a global question about physical activity combines so many activities (yard 

work, chores, formal exercise, and walking for functional purposes) that it is difficult to imagine 

a reasonable response strategy. Parsing the question seems logical, and indeed, the decomposed 

version performs consistently better (although not at statistically significant levels).

 I will suggest that some global questions provide reasonable tasks and some do not, and 

that there is no simple verdict regarding the general suitability of global questions. Reasonable 

global questions, quite simply, are those for which there is a reasonable cognitive strategy for 
responding to them. It is logical that questions are likely to be more effective when they line up 

with specific ways that memories are encoded (see Tulving, 1972). If specific questions are 

constructed in a way that corresponds well with memory, then moving to global questions is 

likely to entail a sacrifice in the precision of estimates. However, it is also possible that specific 

questions are not optimally designed given the way respondent memories are organized. In that 

case, a well-designed global question could actually do a better job invoking a reasonable 

estimation strategy.

Toward future research and evaluation of CES measures 

If some global questions perform better than others, data is needed to evaluate how well 

they match up with what respondents can actually report, as opposed to more specific 

counterpart questions. It is a relatively straightforward manner to collect such data through 

cognitive laboratory evaluations. One approach is to use probes or think-alouds to investigate 

how respondents answer global and specific questions. Resulting data can be used to evaluate 

which level of question specificity matches respondent memories best-- or, whether particular 

global questions push respondent estimation beyond what seems acceptable. It is also reasonable 

to expect that in some cases global questions could pose simpler tasks than more specific 

counterparts. 

Ultimately, validation data is highly desirable to evaluate the accuracy of global or 

specific questions, but collecting such data can be impractical and challenging. The research 

cited earlier is partially a cautionary tale of coding perils. When using diaries, great attention to 

coding procedures is necessary to ensure that diary data will be comparable to survey responses. 

It is also important to validate questions using the reference period that will actually be used in 

survey questions. Moving from a 30-day to a 3-day reference period was an unfortunate 

compromise that could have significantly altered the response task (i.e., whereas estimation is 

almost certainly required for a 30 day reference period, a counting strategy is plausible over three 

days). This compromise could have affected the generalizability of findings. 

Another hypothesis that emerged from the study described earlier is that patterns of bias 

could be related to frequency of behaviors. In data not presented here, we found that the bias 

from multiple decomposed questions was relatively constant, whereas the bias of global 

questions (toward underestimation) seemed to increase the more frequent the behavior. The data 
are hardly definitive, but suggest the possibility that biases from global questions may be 

stronger for higher frequency behaviors. This could suggest that there is greater benefit to 

keeping multiple questions for such behaviors. This is certainly worth exploring in future 

research. 

Global questions, especially those covering wide conceptual terrain and long reference 

periods, are unlikely to provide answers that are literally correct in terms of recall of specific 

information. They are more likely to invoke estimation strategies, but this does not necessarily 

mean that the information produced is of lesser quality. But it could mean that, compared to 

specific questions, respondents will rely on broader estimation strategies that could produce less 

precise data. This possibility should be explored on a question by question basis, as the quality 

of global questions can vary greatly. 
References

Beatty, P., Cosenza, C., and Fowler, F. (2006). “Experiments on the Structure and Specificity of 

Complex Survey Questions.” Paper presented at the 2006 AAPOR Conference held in Montreal, 

Quebec, Canada. Proceedings of the Section on Survey Research Methods, American Statistical 

Association, 2006. 

Beatty, P., and Maitland, A. (2008). “The Accuracy of Decomposed vs. Global Behavioral 

Frequency Questions.” Paper presented at the American Association for Public Opinion 

Research Conference held in New Orleans, LA, May 14-18, 2008. 

Belli, R.F., Schwarz, N, Singer, E, and Talarico, J. (2000). “Decomposition Can Harm the 

Accuracy of Behavioural Frequency Reports.” Applied Cognitive Psychology, 14, 295-308. 

Burton, S. and Blair, E. (1991). “Task Conditions, Resposne Formulation Processes, and 

Response Accuracy for Behavioral Frequency Reports in Surveys.” Public Opinion Quarterly, 

55, 50-79. 

Menon, G. (1997). “Are the Parts Better than the Whole? The Effects of Decompositional 

Questions on Judgments of Frequent Behaviors.” Journal of Marketing Research, 34, 335-346 

Tourangeau, R, Rips, L.J., and Raskinski, K. (2000). The Psychology of Survey Response. 

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 

Tulving, E. (1972). “Episodic and Semantic Memory.” In E. Tulving and W. Donaldson, eds., 

Organization of Memory. New York: Academic Press.
Appendix: Global and Decomposed Questions

Physical Activity—Global

The first question is about moderate or strenuous physical activities you may have done at home 

or in your leisure time. By moderate or strenuous, we mean physical activities that lasted 10 

minutes or longer, and caused at least some increase in heart rate or breathing. Please do not 

include physical activities done in any job for pay. 

From [START DAY] to [END DAY], how much time did you spend doing moderate or 

strenuous physical activities, including yard work or other chores, walking for exercise or to get 

somewhere, or other exercise such as running, cycling, working out in a gym, or playing sports? 

Physical Activity-- Decomposed

The next few questions are about moderate or strenuous physical activities you may have done at 

home or in your leisure time. By moderate or strenuous, we mean physical activities that lasted 

10 minutes or longer, and caused at least some increase in heart rate or breathing. Please do not 

include physical activities done in any job for pay. 

DQ1A. From [START DAY] to [END DAY], how much time did you spend doing moderate or 

strenuous yard work or other chores? 

DQ1B. From [START DAY] to [END DAY], how much time did you do moderate or strenuous 

walking, either for exercise or to get somewhere? 

DQ1C. From [START DAY] to [END DAY], how much time did you spend doing other 

moderate or strenuous exercise such as running, cycling, working out in a gym, or playing 

sports? 

Cereal—Global 

GQ2. How many times did you eat hot cereal such as oatmeal or grits, or cold cereal such as 

Wheaties or Cheerios, either as part of a meal or as a snack? [IF ASKED FOR TIME PERIOD: 

‘FROM [START DAY] TO [END DAY’]

Cereal—Decomposed

DQ2A. From [START DAY] to [END DAY], how many times did you eat hot cereals such as 

oatmeal or grits either as part of a meal or as a snack? 
DQ2B. How many times did you eat cold cereals such as Wheaties or Cheerios either as part of a 

meal or as a snack? [IF ASKED FOR TIME PERIOD: ‘FROM [START DAY] TO [END 

DAY]’]

Pasta and Rice—Global 

GQ3. How many times did you eat pasta or rice? Include spaghetti, noodles, macaroni and 

cheese, pasta salad, any other kind of hot or cold pasta, and either white or brown rice. [IF 

ASKED FOR TIME PERIOD: ‘FROM [START DAY] TO [END DAY’]]

Pasta and Rice—Decomposed

DQ3A. How many times did you eat any kind of pasta, such as spaghetti, noodles, macaroni and 

cheese, pasta salad, or any other kind of hot or cold pasta? [IF ASKED FOR TIME PERIOD: 

‘FROM [START DAY] TO [END DAY’]]

DQ3B. How many times did you eat any kind of rice, either white or brown rice? [IF ASKED 

FOR TIME PERIOD: ‘FROM [START DAY] TO [END DAY’]

 

Cheese—Global 

GQ5. How many times did you eat cheese, including cheese as snacks or appetizers, and cheese 

in sandwiches, burgers, lasagna, pizza, or mixed in with some other dish? Do not count cream 

cheese. [IF ASKED FOR TIME PERIOD: ‘FROM [START DAY] TO [END DAY’] [IF 

ASKED, CHEESED DIP CAN BE INCLUDED AS A SNACK OR APPETIZER]

Cheese—Decomposed 

The next few questions are about any cheese you may have eaten from [START DAY] to [END 

DAY]. Please do not count any cream cheese you may have eaten. 

DQ5A. From [START DAY] to [END DAY], how many times have you eaten cheese on a

sandwich, including burgers? 

DQ5B. How many times have you eaten cheese as snacks or appetizers? [IF ASKED FOR 

TIME PERIOD: ‘FROM [START DAY] TO [END DAY’]] [IF ASKED, CHEESED DIP CAN 

BE INCLUDED AS A SNACK OR APPETIZER]

DQ5C. How many times have you eaten cheese in lasagna, pizza, or mixed in with some other 

dish? Please do not include in your answer anything you reported in the previous two questions. 

[IF ASKED FOR TIME PERIOD: ‘FROM [START DAY] TO [END DAY]’]

Dessert—Global
GQ6. The next question asks about dessert foods, including ice cream, candy, chocolate, 

cookies, cakes and pies, and other sweet bakery items you might eat at breakfast or as a snack 

like doughnuts, Pop tarts, Danishes, and muffins. Please include anything that was low-fat or fatfree, but do NOT include sugar-free items.

How many times did you eat these foods? [IF ASKED FOR TIME PERIOD: ‘FROM [START 

DAY] TO [END DAY]’]

Dessert-- Decomposed

The next few questions are about dessert foods, including sweet baked goods you may have 

eaten at breakfast or as a snack from [START DAY] to [END DAY]. Please include anything 

that was low-fat or fat-free, but do NOT include sugar-free items. 

DQ6A. During the period of [START DAY] to [END DAY], how many times did you eat ice 

cream, sorbet, or frozen yogurt? 

DQ6B. How many times did you eat cookies, cakes, pies, or brownies? [IF ASKED 

FOR TIME PERIOD: ‘FROM [START DAY] TO [END DAY]’]

DQ6C. How many times did you eat candy or chocolate? Please do not include any chocolate 

that was an ingredient in something you’ve already told me about. [IF ASKED FOR TIME 

PERIOD: ‘FROM [START DAY] TO [END DAY]’]

DQ6D. How many times did you eat donuts, Danishes, Pop Tarts, or muffins? [IF ASKED FOR 

TIME PERIOD: ‘FROM [START DAY] TO [END DAY]’]

Oil—Global 

GQ7. The next question is about oils used with food. You should include things like vegetable 

oil or olive oil, but not butter or margarine. From [START DAY] to [END DAY], how many 

times have you used oils to cook food, or added oils to foods like salad, pasta, or bread? 

Oil—Decomposed 

DQ7A. The next few questions are about oils used with food. You should include things like 

vegetable oil or olive oil, but not butter or margarine. From [START DAY] to [END DAY], 

how many times have you used oils to cook food? 

DQ7B. From [START DAY] to [END DAY], how many times have you added oil to salads, 

such as oil and vinegar? 
DQ7C. From [START DAY] to [END DAY], how many times have you added oils to other 

foods like pasta or bread?