Measurement of ethical food choice motives

The two studies describe the development of three complementary scales to the Food Choice Questionnaire developed by Steptoe, Pollard & Wardle (1995). The new items address various ethical Food choice motives and were derived from previous studies on vegetarianism and ethical food choice. The items were factor analysed in Study 1 (N = 281) and the factor solution was confirmed in Study 2 (N = 125), in which simple validity criteria were also included. Futhermore, test-retest reliability was assessed with a separate sample of subjects (N = 36). The results indicated that the three new scales, Ecological Welfare (including subscales for Animal Welfare and Environment Protection), Political Values and Religion, are reliable and valid instruments for a brief screening of ethical food choice reasons. (C) 2000 Academic Press.