Low-cost diets: more energy, fewer nutrients

Abstract

Energy-dense diets offer a low-cost dietary option to the consumer. However, they are more likely to be nutrient-poor. In this study, based on the French national food consumption survey, the diet costs were estimated using retail food prices in France. Adult participants were stratified by quartiles of energy cost (in h/10 MJ). Dietary energy density, energy and nutrient intakes were then compared across groups. Participants in the lowest quartile of energy cost had the highest energy intakes, the most energy-dense diets and the lowest daily intakes of key vitamins and micronutrients. Participants in the highest quartile of energy cost had lower energy intakes, and diets that were higher in nutrients and lower in energy density. However, their daily diet costs were 165% higher. In this observational study, the more nutrient-dense diets were associated with higher diet costs.

Multiple socio-economic circumstances and healthy food habits

“…Similar findings have been reported in Australia, where food purchasing behaviours among the socio-economically disadvantaged were least in accordance with dietary recommendations (Turrell et al, 2003a). In France, the costs of more nutrient-dense, healthier diets have been found to be higher, whereas energy-dense diets high in fat and sugar continue to be a low-cost option (Drewnowski et al, 2004;Andrieu et al, 2006). Thus, when studying food habits including consumption of fruit and vegetables, disposable income can be assumed to have an effect, as access to, for example, fruit and vegetables may be constrained by low income (Giskes et al, 2002;Kirkpatrick and Tarasuk, 2003).…”

Monetary costs of dietary energy reported by young Japanese women: association with food and nutrient intake and body mass index

“…As this procedure gives only an approximation of actual diet costs, the results of the present study should be interpreted with caution. We note, however, that a similar methodology has been used in all previous observational studies [5][6][7][8][9][10] . , size of residential area (city with $1 million; city with ,1 million; town and village), living status (living with family; living alone; living with others), current smoking (yes; no), current alcohol drinking (yes; no), current dietary supplement use (yes; no), currently trying to lose weight (yes; no), rate of eating (very slow; relatively slow; medium; relatively fast; very fast) and energy intake (kcal day 21 , continuous).…”

Monetary cost of dietary energy is negatively associated with BMI and waist circumference, but not with other metabolic risk factors, in young Japanese women

“…When a significant association was observed in the above model, further adjustment was done for dietary composition (protein, fat and dietary fibre intake) or dietary energy density. This was conducted for investigating possible causal pathways; dietary composition has been shown to be associated not only with metabolic risk factors (14)(15)(16) but also with monetary diet cost (4,12,17) , while dietary energy density has similarly been shown to be associated not only with metabolic risk factors (9,18) but also with monetary diet cost (2,4,11) . Linear trends with increasing levels of monetary cost of dietary energy were tested by assigning each participant a median value for the category and modelling this value as a continuous variable.…”

“…As this procedure gives only an approximation of actual diet costs, the results of the present study should be interpreted with caution. We note, however, that a similar methodology has been used in all previous observational studies (1)(2)(3)(4)(10)(11)(12)17) .…”