• The Korean Journal of Food And Nutrition
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.37-53
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• 2011

The objective of this study was to prepare the base on which Korean food can become a globally important health food. A focus group interview was conducted with a nutritionist and professor of food and nutrition to select the Korean food for a healthy menu. Five main categories were established to select a healthy menu based on the Korean food philosophy, including Korean food made from beans, Korean food made using fermentation, Korean food made using various colors, Korean food with high dietary fiber, and Korean food made with abundant unsaturated fatty acids. The 52 healthy menu items selected based on these standards were composed of easily available food materials. The efficacy of food materials described in Sikryochanyo, the traditional Chosun dietary therapy, was checked to verify the efficacy of this healthy menu. This study demonstrated that basic materials can be efficiently used to enable citizens to select Korean food as an international health food. As such, the results can be utilized to publicize Korean food as a healthy food.

• Culinary science and hospitality research
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.16-29
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• 2004

Today, well-being appears as new trend-code all of society. Likewise foodservice industry is influenced by that trend and as a result general menu items tend to change into healthy menu items. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the customers attitude toward healthy menu. One of major research finding is that consumers better interested to healthy menu than past and have potential needs to consume it. So need to extent healthy menu market and develop to consume of healthy menu, should get competitiveness on tastes and price of healthy menu and to segment of healthy menu consumer market.

• Journal of the East Asian Society of Dietary Life
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.488-502
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• 2014

Research on the actual state of healthy Korean food menu items made from environmentally-friendly organic foods showed that 65.6% of subjects had experience of purchasing environmentally-friendly organic foods, and both genders chose 'expensive but reliable' as their prime reason for purchasing. Having no experience of purchasing environmentally-friendly foods constituted 34.5% of respondents, and the reasons were 'high price' and 'finding no difference from ordinary food'. Research on awareness of healthy Korean food menu items made from environmentally-friendly organic ingredients showed that both men and women thought the given menu items were 'fresh' but had little awareness of other factors such as 'good value for price', 'good visual style' and 'various recipes'. Regarding development prospective of environmentally-friendly organic foods, the number of subjects who answered positively was 405 (93%), which indicates that most research subjects showed positive attitudes. Top-selling menu items in the grain section were Sundubu-jjigae, Dubu-kimchi and Jeonju-bibimbap, and pajeon took first place in the vegetable selection. Moreover, Imjasu-tang showed high scores in the meat section. Furthermore, research on menu selection showed that menu selection was usually dependent on 'the price of menu (3.86)', 'fresh ingredients (4.03)', 'harmony of color (3.65)' and 'mood of the day (3.25)'. Research on menu selection revealed that 'quality of food' factors had the greatest influence upon preference and purchase intention for environmentally-friendly organic foods. Visual and psychological factors and values had significant an effect. Therefore, the food service industry should use this study as a source to develop menu items, by considering quality and visual factors. In addition, there should be various research performed on marketing strategies about menus from using environmentally-friendly organic foods and high value products.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.348-354
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• 2018

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Obesity is a serious concern worldwide, for which the restaurant industry holds partial responsibility. This study was conducted to estimate restaurant consumers' intention to select healthy menu items and to examine the relationships among behavioral beliefs, past behaviors, attitudes and behavioral intentions, which are known to be major determinants of consumer behaviors. SUBJECTS/METHODS: An online, self-administered survey was distributed for data collection. The study sample consisted of customers who reported having visited casual dining restaurants in the last three months at the time of the survey. Structural equation modeling was used to verify the fit of the proposed research model. RESULTS: Structural equation modeling revealed that the proposed model supports the sequential, mediated (indirect) relationships among behavioral beliefs, past behaviors, attitudes and behavioral intentions toward healthy menu selection. CONCLUSION: This study contributes to the available literature regarding obesity by adding past behaviors, one of the most influential variables involved in prediction of future behaviors of consumers, to the TPB model, enabling a better understanding of restaurant consumers' rational decision process regarding healthy menu choices. The results of this study provide practical implications for restaurant practitioners and government agencies regarding ways to promote healthy menus.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.155-166
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• 2021

Objectives: Driven by a growth of single-person households and individualized lifestyles, solo dining in restaurants is an increasingly recognizable trend. However, a research gap exists in the comparison of solo and group diners' menu-decision making processes. Based on the self-control dilemma and the temporal construal theory as a theoretical framework, this study compared the ordering intentions of solo vs. group diners with healthy vs. indulgent (less healthy) entrées. The mediating role of consumption orientation and the moderating role of amount of menu nutrition information were further explored to understand the mechanism and a boundary condition. Methods: A scenario-based online survey was developed using a 2 (dining social context: solo vs. with others) × 3 (amount of menu nutrition information: no nutrition information vs. calories vs. calories/fat/sodium), between-subjects, experimental design. Consumers' level of nutrition involvement was controlled. A nationwide survey data (n = 224) were collected from a crowdsourcing platform in the U.S. Data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance, independent t-test, univariate analysis of covariance, and moderated mediation analyses. Results: Findings reveal that solo (vs. group) diners have less (vs. more) intentions to order indulgent menu items due to a more utilitarian (vs. more hedonic) consumption orientation in restaurant dining. Findings also show that solo (vs. group) diners have more (vs. less) intentions to order healthy menu items when the restaurant menu presented nutrition information including calories, fat, and sodium. Conclusions: The findings contribute to the literature of foodservice management, healthy eating, and consumer behavior by revealing a mechanism and an external stimuli of solo vs. group diners' healthy menu-decision making process in restaurants. Furthermore, the findings provide restauranteurs and health professionals with insights into the positive and negative impacts of menu nutrition labelling on consumers' menu-decisions.

• Culinary science and hospitality research
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.307-323
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• 2009

This study aims to redefine people's attitudes about well-being trend LOHAS(Lifestyles Of Health And Sustainability) by a systematic research on diners' perspectives about LOHAS and menu-selecting behavior since well-being trend has been a main interest of the media and the food service industry. Also, this study has focused on understanding customers' menu-selecting behavior through a customer interest survey and on customers' interests and verifying factors for healthy food inclination and satisfaction level to give basic information and marketing suggestions for healthful menu. SPSS 12.0 was used for the data analysis, and $x^$-test was carried to make clear the different perspectives about well-being trend LOHAS according to the general characteristics of those polled. Factor analysis was done to menu-selecting behavior. Differences between sampling menu-selecting factors and general characteristics(t-test & ANOVA) were inspected and multiple regression analysis between health inclination and satisfaction level was also conducted. According to the survey, customers' well-being menu selecting behavior showed highly in married women, relatively older people, those with higher general income and higher education. Regression analysis showed that menu-selecting behavior influenced customers' inclination toward health and satisfaction level. Therefore, the food service industry should target those groups and improve its promotional communication strategy with proper menu development and an improved concept.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.126-136
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to investigate Chinese customers' perceptions of Korean foods and their satisfaction toward Korean cuisine restaurants. The subjects of this study were 202 Chinese individuals who visited Korean cuisine restaurants in Shanghai, China. The subjects viewed Korean foods as favorite foods and perceived them as fresh and seasonal, and mostly composed of cereals and vegetables however they did not view Korean cuisine as good for health. As compared to customers visiting a Korean restaurant for the first time, those who had visited Korean restaurants previously agreed more strongly with the following items: 'Korean food has a beautiful color', 'Korean food is familiar', 'Korean food smells good', 'Korean food is healthy', 'Korean food is nutritious', and 'Korean food is salty and spicy'. In addition, as compared to occasional visitors, frequent visitors of Korean cuisine restaurants more strongly agreed with the followings: 'Korean food has a beautiful color', 'Korean food is expensive', 'Korean food is healthy', 'Korean food is nutritious', 'Korean food is salty and spicy', and 'Korean food includes many fermented foods'. The subjects considered 'appearance of menu', 'variety of menu', 'nutrition of menu', and 'Chinese characters for menu and ingredients' as the most important attributes when choosing Korean cuisine restaurants. The frequent customers of Korean cuisine restaurants considered 'kind service', 'employee knowledge of Korean foods', 'operation hours of restaurant', and 'cleanliness of restaurant' as the most important restaurant attributes. In addition, the frequent customers of Korean cuisine restaurants were more satisfied than the occasional customers with the followings: 'nutritional quality of menu', 'quick service', 'cleanliness of restaurant', 'appearance and signboard of restaurant', and 'image of restaurant'. The implications of the data are discussed.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.114-120
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• 2008

A diet habit, which is developed in childhood, lasts for a life time. In this sense, nutrition education and early exposure to healthy menus in childhood is important. Children these days have easy access to the internet. Thus, a web-based nutrition education program for children is an effective tool for nutrition education of children. This site provides the material of the nutrition education for children with characters which are personified nutrients. The 151 menus are stored in the site together with video script of the cooking process. The menus are classified by the criteria based on age, menu type and the ethnic origin of the menu. The site provides a search function. There are three kinds of search conditions which are key words, menu type and "between" expression of nutrients such as calorie and other nutrients. The site is developed with the operating system Windows 2003 Server, the web server ZEUS 5, development language JSP, and database management system Oracle 10 g.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.145-157
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to develop cultural food contents from local dishes related to the historical and cultural heritage in the representative areas of Gurye and Jinan. The information on 'Story' was collected from each region's representative local native journal, searches of related web-sites, analysis of old literature, and interviews of traditional households. 'Telling', the conveyance, was focused on texts of literature analysis, which were synthesized from historical conditions, regional food materials, cuisine, regional symbolism, etc. The created food contents were displayed with balanced and healthy Korean food dishes after nutritional analysis. In Gurye, the content was extracted from the story of Hwang hyun (黃玹, 1855-1910) - figura of Gurye - and his collection, "Maecheonyarok", and the storytelling native food was prepared. In Jinan, the content was extracted from the text of an anecdote from "filial son Kwang-beom Lee", a local journal. We tried to express Gurye's clean image in connection with the patriot - Hwang hyun (his nick name was Maecheon), in the late period of Chosun through the unprocessed and simple nature of the dining table. As in Jinan's storytelling materials, we tried to express a healthy menu of health food for older people based on the clean nature and documents about the real character's filial behavior. The developed healthy menu and dining table properties in this study have been established in accordance with nutrient intake standards of energy in Korea.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.190-196
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• 2015

Restaurants implement menu labeling to provide nutritional information to customers in an attempt to help customers select healthy menu items. Considering the increase in food-away-from-home consumption, the purpose of this study was to identify motivators and barriers in restaurant customers regarding use of menu labeling. Data were collected from a survey on restaurant customers in Seoul, Korea. The findings of this study indicate that customers used menu labeling for health reasons. However, barriers to using menu labeling were identified as small font size, difficulty in locating nutritional information display, and difficulty in interpreting nutritional information. In addition, they also suggested expanding the scope of menu labeling for restaurants by including chain restaurants with less than 100 units. The findings of this study offer strategies for the government to improve menu labeling practices for customers.