key: cord-333488-l5r1hl8x
authors: Eftimov, Tome; Popovski, Gorjan; Petković, Matej; Seljak, Barbara Koroušić; Kocev, Dragi
title: COVID-19 pandemic changes the food consumption patterns
date: 2020-09-02
journal: Trends Food Sci Technol
DOI: 10.1016/j.tifs.2020.08.017
sha: 
doc_id: 333488
cord_uid: l5r1hl8x

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic affects all aspects of human life including their food consumption. The changes in the food production and supply processes introduce changes to the global dietary patterns. SCOPE AND APPROACH: To study the COVID-19 impact on food consumption process, we have analyzed two data sets that consist of food preparation recipes published before (69,444) and during the quarantine (10,009) period. Since working with large data sets is a time-consuming task, we have applied a recently proposed artificial intelligence approach called DietHub. The approach uses the recipe preparation description (i.e. text) and automatically provides a list of main ingredients annotated using the Hansard semantic tags. After extracting the semantic tags of the ingredients for every recipe, we have compared the food consumption patterns between the two data sets by comparing the relative frequency of the ingredients that compose the recipes. KEY FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS: Using the AI methodology, the changes in the food consumption patterns before and during the COVID-19 pandemic are obvious. The highest positive difference in the food consumption can be found in foods such as “Pulses/ plants producing pulses”, “Pancake/Tortilla/Outcake”, and “Soup/pottage”, which increase by 300%, 280%, and 100%, respectively. Conversely, the largest decrease in consumption can be food for food such as “Order Perciformes (type of fish)”, “Corn/cereals/grain”, and “Wine-making”, with a reduction of 50%, 40%, and 30%, respectively. This kind of analysis is valuable in times of crisis and emergencies, which is a very good example of the scientific support that regulators require in order to take quick and appropriate response.

The COVID-19 pandemic affects all aspects of human life including their food consumption. The changes in the food production and supply processes introduce changes to the global dietary patterns.

To study the COVID-19 impact on food consumption process, we have analyzed two data sets that consist of food preparation recipes published before (69,444) and during the quarantine (10,009) period. Since working with large data sets is a time-consuming task, we have applied a recently proposed artificial intelligence approach called DietHub. The approach uses the recipe preparation description (i.e. text) and automatically provides a list of main ingredients annotated using the Hansard semantic tags. After extracting the The United Nations's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has al-10 ready discussed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic to the world's food 11 and agriculture systems. They point out that, based on the highly global-12 ized nature of today's food production and supply, commodities need to move 13 from the world's source of grain supply to where they are consumed (Food Furthermore, restrictions on shipments have lead to potential shortages of 25 some food products, especially related to fresh fruits and vegetables, fish and 26 fish products, and other food products of similar perishable nature. This 27 furthermore affects seasonal workers, like those working on farms. Conse-28 quently, this further affects and decelerates the food production process.

Another economic factor is that during the pandemic, many people are ex- concepts (such as names of food ingredients and cooking procedures) speci-57 ter), and then using the tags on a higher level leaf (i.e., to more general food 82 concepts, e.g. diary produce). The results are presented in Figures 1 and 2 . acting on their behalf may be held responsible for the use that may be made 165 of the information contained herein.

The hansard corpus 1803-2005

Allrecipes, 2020. 20 amazing allrecipes facts and statistics

Espen expert statements and practical guidance for nutritional 173 management of individuals with sars-cov-2 infection

Covid-19 information on nutritional support

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations

WHO director-general's opening remarks at the 181 media briefing on covid-19. World Health Organization

The continuing 185 2019-ncov epidemic threat of novel coronaviruses to global health-the 186 latest 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak in wuhan, china. International 187

Tree ensembles for pre-189 dicting structured outputs

Feature ranking for hierarchical 191 multi-label classification with tree ensemble methods

Hungarica Accepted for publication

Dietary Habits Analysis through Understanding Recipe's Content. Under 195 review

FoodBase corpus: a new 197 resource of annotated food entities