AbstractsMedical & Health Science

The aim of this thesis was to study the motivational factors for using wild foods in the restaurants around Vaasa and how the restaurants in Vaasa view forest grown food ingredients. The wild food ingredients mean the foods grown in the forest themselves and they are allowed to use from consumption point of view. The major grown food ingredients are wild berries, wild mushrooms, game animals and fish. This thesis primarily focused on the sustainable food consumption along with the use of forest foods prevalent around Vaasa. And, it also gives an outlook for the users to minimize the waste of forest foods and provide additional support for do-mestic food consumption. Further, the thesis guides the user to use the forest foods at appropriate period so that the nutrition of forest food could be preserved. With the use of a qualitative method, an interview protocol was formulated to find out how the restaurant chefs use the forest food along with motivational factors. Interviews were conducted in five different restaurants (two- lunch restaurants, one- café and two- a la carte Restaurant) with chefs to find out the present state of using ingredients from the forest in local restaurants around Vaasa. In conclusion, it was found out that Finnish culture, taste and their demand are the motivational attributes for using the ingredients from forest. It was also found out that the chefs paid less attention to terms like sustainability and hedonism.