A survey on awareness of consumers about health problems of food additives in packaged foods and their attitude toward consumption of packaged foods: A case study at Jimma University

The objective of the study was to assess degree of consumption of packaged foods, awareness of consumers about health problems of food additives, and also their attitudes towards packaged foods. Two hundred seventy nine employees of Jimma University were participated in the study. Data were collected using semi-structured questionnaires, and analyzed using SPSS software (version16). The results showed that 71.68% of the respondents replied that they do not frequently consume/purchase packaged food mainly for price reason. The rest (28.32%) replied that they frequently consume/purchase packaged foods. The results also showed that 64.15% of the respondents are aware of health problems of packaged foods that contain food additives. However, the majority of respondents (70.96%) still want to continue consumption of packaged foods. This indicates that lack of knowledge of consumers about chemical properties of food additives of specific classes and their associated health risks. Thus, awareness raising activities are recommended to consumers to avoid long-term health problems of food additives.