Institute for Fiscal Studies report on food and poverty

"Struggling households are turning to cheaper, fattier food in the wake of the recession." So it says in this newspaper article. This comes from research on food and poverty done by the Institute for Fiscal Studies. However, if you look at the report (Food purchases and nutrition over the recession), the facts don't seem so alarming.

The report says there has been an increase in the calorie density of food eaten by 2.6%, less for poorer people. Fat density has increased by 2.4%, less for the poorer people. Sugar density has increased by 2.1%. So we have increases of between 2% and 3%, which doesn't seem to be a big change. What's more salt density has decreased by 7.5% and fibre density has increased by 4.1%, which is quite a good thing. So the food we eat has become slightly fattier and slightly more sugary, but at the same time less salty and with a higher fibre content.

At the same time people have been spending less on food and eating fewer calories. The amount of fat, sugar and salt eaten have been decreasing. One way you can interpret the statistics is to say that people are eating slightly less food overall, eating the same proportion of processed food, but eating cheaper processed food. Cheap processed food does seem to have more fat and sugar than the more expensive processed food.

What people don't seem to be doing is turning to the cheaper less processed foods such as rice and pasta. The assumption that the Institute of Fiscal Studies are making is that calorie dense foods are cheaper. It might well be that a macaroni cheese from Iceland is more calorific and cheaper than the equivalent from Marks and Spencer. However, less processed foods such as rice and pasta are much cheaper than the cheapest processed foods. So to say that the poor have had no option but to turn to more calorie dense foods is wrong.

nutritional recession hits the UK

On the front page of the Guardian yesterday there was the headline Britain in nutritional recession as rising prices toke toll on diet. The sub-heading was Low-income households shun fresh fruit and veg for processed foods.

The first paragraph of the article said this:-

Austerity Britain is experiencing a nutritional recession, with rising food prices and shrinking incomes driving up the consumption of fatty foods, reducing the amount of fruit and vegetables we buy, and condemning people on the lowest incomes to an increasingly unhealthy diet.

I don't doubt that poorer people are eating more high-fat and processed foods, and fruit and vegetable consumption has dropped. Readers of this blog will know that I dispute the idea that high-fat and processed foods are cheap. This isn't my opinion, anyone can look at the facts. It is easy to calculate the number of calories per penny for a number of foods.

The Guardian has made the claim that poor people can't afford healthy food several times over the years. The mistake they are making is setting up a false dichotomy between fruit and vegetables on the one hand and high-fat processed foods on the other hand. The most important type of food for poorer people should be the starchy staples eg rice, pasta, bread, porridge. These should provide the bulk of the calories consumed. These are by far the cheapest type of food. A kilo of long-grain rice costs 40p. A bowl of rice costs 4 or 5p to make. This type of food isn't even mentioned in the Guardian.

The other thing that is wrong is that, even if you consider vegetables on a calories per penny basis, they are not more expensive than high-fat and processed foods. Sainsbury's sell a bag of mixed vegetables that work out around 4 calories per penny. A Mac Donald's cheeseburger is around 3.5 calories per penny and a Big Mac around 2.5. Frozen vegetables are just as nutritious and more convenient to use than fresh. If you are eating vegetables you don't need fruit as well.