Abstract:
The present research was carried out to study factors influencing food preferences
towards acculturation among Middle-East students in the Klang Valley area. The
questionnaires were distributed to a convenience sample of 100 Middle-East students who
studies in five (5) universities in Klang Valley area. The universities that involved in this
research were Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Universiti Malaya (UM),
Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM}, Islamic International University of Malaysia (HUM)
and Universiti Tenaga National Malaysia (UNITEN) which every university was
collected about 20 samples. There was a significant difference for food frequency intake
while living in Malaysia compared to country of origin. From 51 foods listed on the
questionnaires, consumption of bread, cereal, rice, vegetables, meats products, fats,
sweets beverages and Arabic dishes were decreased significantly and increased
significantly for Malaysian and Western dishes. Convenience factors which was one of
the food choice factors being an influencing factors of food preferences with has positive
and weakly correlation (r
=
0.184, p< 0.05) while there were no significant differences for
food frequency intake, acculturation factors, and sociodemographic factors for food
preferences. Due to the results in this research, the respondents were not acculturated
with Malaysian foods and culture because for every items in acculturation, the values
were closer to 3
=
"English" reflecting a tendency to use Arab and English language,
culture and influencing in reading. For food preferences, the respondents choose the
Arabic foods (mean
=
2.32 and 2.33).
