Towards a pervasive kitchen infrastructure for measuring cooking competence

Research has demonstrated that a lack of cooking competence can be a significant barrier to healthier eating. We present two studies from which we develop a set of requirements for a pervasive sensor infrastructure that will enable our Ambient Kitchen environment to measure cooking competence in an unobtrusive manner. From the first study we derive key characteristics and potentially measurable aspects of cooking competence. This study also led to the specification and design of a pervasive sensor infrastructure comprising of a set of kitchen utensils equipped with custom-made wireless accelerometers. The second study reports our initial findings from the use of the sensor infrastructure and demonstrates its potential to measure key indicators of cooking competence. Our studies provide initial evidence that cooking competence can be measured automatically using our proposed pervasive kitchen infrastructure.