“Eating Out”, spatiality, temporality and sociality. A database for China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and France

Abstract:
Eating out is a central dimension of the food and nutrition transitions (1–3). However, most of the available data on eating out were reported in Europe and North America. A high
rate of eating out is one of the specificities of the Asian food system (4–6), which is further assumed to increase alongside compressed modernization (7–9). To fill this gap, “Eating Out”
is a recurrent cross-sectional survey that focuses on the spatiality, temporality, and sociality of food intakes in five Asian countries and one European country. It, thus, addresses an important
data gap by allowing cross-national comparisons and quantitative assessments of movements of food between home and out of home across a large consortium. It is conducted within the
framework of the chair of “Food Studies: Food, Cultures, and Health” created jointly by Taylor’s University (Malaysia) and the University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès (France), in partnership with SEAMEO RECFON (Indonesia) and Ritsumeikan University (Japan), and lead by Jean-Pierre Poulain. This survey is a part of the wider Asian Food Barometer initiative and supplementary to the national Food Barometers, currently, the Malaysian (10) and the Indonesian databases. While the national surveys are including data on the food content and quantities, thus enabling analysis of the nutrient composition (11), “Eating Out” is focusing on the food day patterns. This article briefly reviews the available data on eating out—specifically in Asia, proposes a framework, and details the methods regarding the organization of the initial data collection (2019–2020). Expected uses and limitations of the data as well as their possible contributions conclude the article.