Replacing Fats and Sweets With Vegetables and Fruits—A Question of Cost

Abstract

Diets high in fats and sweets represent a low-cost option to the consumer, whereas the recommended "prudent" diets cost more.

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

“…High-fat diets were less expensive than lowfat diets in Danish children 5 and French adults 7 . These findings in Western populations are again inconsistent with our observations.…”

“…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).…”

“…If healthier foods cost more then so too will healthier diets, suggesting that consumers with limited financial resources might select energy-dense and nutrient-dilute diets as a means of saving money. Observational studies (albeit a limited number) on the cost of freely chosen diets have consistently shown that healthful diets are more expensive than less healthful diets [5][6][7][8][9][10] . To our knowledge, however, all studies of self-selected diets and monetary costs have been conducted in European countries, with none reported in Asian countries, including Japan.…”

Low-cost diets: more energy, fewer nutrients

“…Some have shown that diets based on grains, sweets and fats are more affordable than diets based on lean meats, fish or fresh produce (Cade et al, 1999;Drewnowski et al, 2004). Fruit, vegetables, meat and fish contribute more to diet cost than to dietary energy, whereas grain, fats and sweets contribute more to dietary energy than to diet cost.…”