Reaching culturally acceptable and adequate diets at the lowest cost increment according to income level in Brazilian households

Abstract

Objective To identify food choices allowing the fulfillment of nutritionally adequate diets resembling actual food patterns at the lowest cost achievable for the Brazilian population, stratified by income level. Methods Food consumption and prices were obtained from the Household Budget Survey (n = 55,970 households) and National Dietary Survey (n = 32,749 individuals). The sample was stratified into capitals of the states and further by income levels according to the official minimum wage (totaling 108 geographic-economic strata, or GES). Linear programming models were performed for each GES in order to find the lowest cost of diets that meet a set of nutritional constraints. In order to find realistic diets, constraints referring to preferences were introduced in the models allowing optimized food quantities to depart progressively from the current intake for each food and food group. The impact of meeting each target nutrient was assessed by performing models removing each nutrient at the time.

Influence of Micronutrient Intake, Sociodemographic, and Behavioral Factors on Periodontal Status of Adults Assisted by a Public Health Care System in Brazil: A Cross-Sectional Multivariate Analysis

“…Approximately 50% of users live in a situation of socio-economic vulnerability [ 88 ], which was reflected in the nutritional and periodontal data. The cost of food is one of the most important determinants of food choices, and family budget constraints are barriers to the adoption of healthy choices in populations with low socioeconomic status [ 89 , 90 ]. Family income was not associated with periodontal status in our study because the sample comprised FHS users with similar incomes (70% had an income below two minimum wages).…”

Opportunities for diet quality improvement: the potential role of staple grain foods

“…Our analysis did not include information on the costs of brown rice and whole-wheat bread compared with the refined alternatives, but the proposed substitutions would probably increase dietary cost (57,58) . Considering that price strongly influence food choice, fiscal incentives for more healthful grain foods may be required in order to promote dietary change, especially among low-income subgroups (51) .…”

Reverse thinking: taking a healthy diet perspective towards food systems transformations

“…In Asian countries, 9-50% of income is spent on food, and in nonconflict-affected African countries it is 25-158% (WFP, 2017). Mathematical modelling in Brazil, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malaysia and Mexico also found healthy diets more expensive than current (less healthy) diets (Gurmu et al, 2019;Mendoza et al, 2017;Nykänen et al, 2018;Pondor et al, 2017;Verly et al, 2020). On average globally, the range of costs of a healthy diet that meets FBDGs is between USD 3.27-4.57 per day, depending on the specific constraints of guideline applied (Herforth et al, 2020).…”