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The global cost of a healthy diet has increased 25% over the past five years, exceeding the extreme poverty line — living on less than $3.00 (€2,62) a day — the United Nations warned.
“As a result, 2.69 billion people, almost one in every three people in the world, still cannot afford a healthy diet,” said Máximo Torero Cullen, chief economist of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) at the United Nations, speaking to reporters ahead of the launch of the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report on 21 July.
He added that the current cost of a healthy diet, one that meets all nutritional needs, is 4.28 per person per day, adjusted for differences in the cost of living between countries, which is over the extreme poverty line —an international standard to measure absolute poverty – which is set at$3 (€2,62) per person per day.
Most of the expenditure does not go to getting enough calories but to having nutrient-rich foods in the diet.
“Calories are relatively inexpensive,” Torero said, “but nutrition is not.”
Staple foods, the main foods people eat every day, such as grains and root vegetables, make up most of a person’s daily calories and represent only 13% of the cost of a healthy diet.
“In contrast, fruits and vegetables provide only 5% of the calories but account for 16% of the cost, so significantly more expensive than cereals, and animal source foods account for almost 30% of the cost,” Torero noted.
Therefore, the challenge “is not to produce enough calories but to make nutrient-rich foods more affordable,” he said.
An unhealthy diet is one of the leading risks for the global burden of disease, mainly for noncommunicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and cancer, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
