Numerous techniques exist to encourage students, convincing them that they can achieve success if they invest time and effort, and that their work has value.

By Bradley J. Ware, Ph.D., and C. Lévesque Ware, Ph.D.

Students are at times already highly motivated when they enter the lab/classroom due to past successes or an interest in the course topic. There are also those individuals who have not experienced the same positive results or who have a preconceived dislike for a course based on a perceived degree of content difficulty. It is precisely in the interest of both these groups that motivation and student engagement should be of primary importance for the chef/instructor from the very first day of lab/class. It is imperative to retain and foster the enthusiasm of highly motivated students and of dire necessity to help motivate others to achieve success.

Most consumers who have enjoyed dining from a food truck say they’re not a passing fad. But many non-users are still hesitant to try one out.

A new study by Chicago-based trend-tracker Technomic reveals good news for mobile food vehicles, as 91% of consumers polled who are familiar with food trucks say they view the trend as having staying power and not a passing fad. Only 7% of consumers who use mobile food vehicles (MFV) say they expect their frequency of visits to food trucks to decrease over the next year.

According to NPD, more adult consumers aspire to eat smaller portions in the coming year, suggesting that this healthy eating strategy will become more important in the future.

Portion control is a tenet of healthy eating, and it appears that consumers are increasingly aware of the importance of managing the portion size of the foods they eat, according to The NPD Group, a leading market research company.

For a recent report entitled “Healthy Eating Strategies by Generation,” NPD compiled a list of 30 healthy eating and lifestyle dimensions to determine which ones consumers of different generations associate with healthy eating. Out of the 30 attributes, eating smaller portions ranked 11^th in importance among adult consumers across generations as a healthy-eating characteristic. Adult consumers ranked the top five characteristics of healthy eating and healthy lifestyles consistently: exercise regularly, eat well-balanced meals, eat all things in moderation, limit/avoid foods with saturated fat or cholesterol or trans fats, and drink at least eight glasses of water per day.

Technomic identifies what consumers find most appealing about burgers offered at more than 40 leading limited- and full-service chains.

A new study released by trend-tracker Technomic finds burger consumption up considerably since 2009, with nearly half of today’s consumers saying they eat a burger at least once a week compared with 38% two years ago. One reason for the increase is the continued prominence of burgers on quick-service value menus.

“The value menu is certainly a big part of this increase in burger consumption,” says Sara Monnette, director of consumer research at Chicago-based Technomic. “There are other factors at work, however, as the specialty-burger craze has driven growth in a way that is almost defiantly separate from pricing. The better burger restaurants in the fast-casual segment have put the burger top of mind for consumers, and even the quick-service chains have begun to respond and focus portions of their menus specifically on quality perceptions.”

Total and fried seafood servings at restaurants are on the decline, but non-fried seafood consumption is increasing.

The decline in seafood servings at U.S. restaurants has less to do with natural and man-made disasters like the Gulf oil spill and more to do with the economy and price, according to The NPD Group, a leading market research company. NPD's foodservice market research finds that total seafood and fried seafood servings have been declining for several years, while servings of non-fried seafood have increased over the last two years.