Data from an online survey on lentil consumption practices in France in 2022

Background In a context of transition towards plant-based protein diet, a survey aiming to collect the lentil consumer practices in France in 2022 was performed. There were 607 responses to the survey, of which a large majority (556) were lentil consumers. Amongst those, 283 people indicated that they currently eat more lentils than 5 years ago. The questions were related to type of lentil meals, frequency of consumption, type of preparation, storage duration once cooked etc. (Table 1). There were also general questions on age, gender and region. The survey may be used to obtain information on what type of lentils is consumed (and how often) in France, how it is cooked and stored. This information may be then plugged into a food safety risk assessment to refine, for instance, a microbial exposure model. In particular, of the 21 questions asked, four were about possible leftovers and their duration and two about cooling practices for hot meals. This information is crucial for lentils because consumer information about legumes, especially those prepared at home, is still scarce.


Number Question
Type of responses Our current food system also has significant health impacts. For example, the increase in the risk of diseases (cardiovascular, obesity, type 2 diabetes) linked to a diet rich in animal protein has been often highlighted. Thus, many scientific experts, nutritionists, farmers and consumers are sounding the alarm: our agricultural and food system has reached a dead end. The stakes are high, adopting a dual transition: protein and agroecological (Uthayakumar and Loustau 2019).
In that context, legumes hold a prominent place. Pulses (chickpeas, lentils, beans) belong to the Fabaceae family and their seeds play an important role in the human diet. They are a very important source of vegetable proteins, polysaccharides (fibre, starch) and micronutrients (vitamins, trace minerals). In the next few years, lentil consumption will probably increase significantly due to a change in eating habits by consumers, who are increasingly turning to proteins of plant origin and also to organic food. According to Nielsen (2019), flexitarianism (lower consumption of animal proteins) is becoming the primary diet of the French population.
However, while facing this protein transition favouring a higher consumption of lentils, too little is still known on the potential public health risk associated with this food product. Due to this, it was considered as urgent to conduct a more in-depth analysis of types of consumption behaviour in order to assess, in a second phase, the health risks (microbiological and chemical) associated with these current and future consumption patterns.

General description
Purpose: In the context of transition towards plant-based protein diet, this survey aimed to collect the lentil consumer practices, in France, in 2022. A national survey in France was performed in 2014 (Dubuisson et al. 2019); however, to integrate the increasing demand for legumes, an additional survey was necessary. Interestingly, the survey revealed that amongst the 556 responders consuming lentils, 283 indicated that they currently eat more lentils than 5 years ago.

Additional information:
The survey was created using Google Forms. It contained 21 questions (Table 1).
A total of 607 responses was received. At this stage, no data analysis was performed, meaning that the dataset is raw.
The dataset includes the 607 responses provided to the survey (csv format). Besides the dataset, a document including the questions asked (pdf format) is provided.
The data underpinning the analysis reported in this paper are deposited at "data.gouv.fr" at https://doi.org/10.57745/KMGODH

Sampling methods
Sampling description: The survey was created on internet (Google Forms) and circulated to friends and colleagues, all around France. The answers were based on declarative information. As such, the sample is not representative of the general population. The responders came from 12 different regions in France, belong to a range age from 18 to 91 and were mainly females (442 females, 154 males, 11 unknown gender).
Google Forms guarantee that they operate under the same strict privacy and data protection commitments as other Google Cloud enterprise services. In more details, Forms are cloud-native, eliminating the need for local files and reducing the risk to personal devices. All files or created in Forms are encrypted in transit and at rest. The security, privacy and compliance settings of Google Forms are regularly audited independently.
Regarding more specifically the survey and the data collected, security measures were put in place to protect the data, including advanced malware protections. Participants' data have been fully anonymised.

Geographic coverage
Description: An online survey on lentil consumer practices was carried out in France in 2022. The region of survey responders is provided in the last column of the csv dataset.

Additional information
It is important to keep in mind that as most of responders were consumers of lentils (556/607), an over-estimate of the percentage of lentil consumer in France is expected. Consequently, the dataset could be used to obtain an estimate on type of lentil meals, type of preparation, storage duration once cooked etc., but not to estimate the overal French rate of lentil consumption.