Is a healthy diet more expensive?

The Food Chain

This episode investigates the global crisis of food affordability and the systemic barriers to maintaining a nutritious diet. Through persona

Key takeaways

Approximately 32.7% of the global population is priced out of a healthy diet.
In Africa, an estimated 66.6% of the population cannot afford a nutritious diet.

Main topics

Global food affordability
Nutritional inequality

Notable quotes

32.7 % of the population cannot afford a healthy diet.

Conclusion

Achieving a healthy diet requires addressing both economic affordabili

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:00) This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Speaker 8 (0:06) Ed Sheeran's Loop Tour is in chaos. All the support acts and artists who were taking part in the tour have pulled out after the rapper Macklemore was dropped for making pro-Palestinian comments on stage. So what happened? And what do fans think about mixing music and politics? Speaker 1 (0:21) I kind of like them to just be neutral. I Speaker 8 (0:24) used to run an Ed Sheeran fan page. I think that his response has been incredibly disappointing. I'm Hannah Gelbart. Come join us on What In The World, an award-winning daily podcast from the BBC World Service. listen wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Speaker 4 (0:46) Welcome to the Haunted Library. Have you come in search of a tale? This podcast invites you to browse the shelves and find stories that will linger long after you've left this place. From gothic masterpieces to pulpy penny dreadfuls, join me, Colin Morgan, with new episodes twice a week. Find the Haunted Library wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 1 (1:16) I spend over 90 % of my income on food, yes. Over 90 % of my income goes on food. My name is Frances. I'm from Nigeria, living in Lagos state. We struggle to afford food because cost of food here is kind of high. I, for myself, I eat sometimes just once or twice so that the kids will be able to eat in a day. Speaker 3 (1:51) Frances is not alone. Around the world, food prices are rising. prices have risen sharply in recent years, making it harder for many people to eat well. Speaker 5 (2:00) What we found is that 32.7 % of the population cannot afford a healthy diet. They are entirely priced out of a healthy diet. Speaker 3 (2:11) So that means that almost one in three people around the world can't afford a healthy diet. Speaker 5 (2:16) Exactly. Speaker 3 (2:17) Some of them even in the world's richest countries. I'm very Speaker 6 (2:21) opportunistic. I go to places where I can get food for Speaker 3 (2:27) free as often as possible. The rising cost of food prompted us to ask a simple question on the BBC World Service Facebook page. Is it more expensive to eat healthily? Hundreds of you replied and opinion was divided. Plenty said no. Cook from scratch with pulses and fresh vegetables and nutritious whole foods and that can actually cost less. But is it always that simple? Sometimes we skip having Speaker 7 (2:55) milk because, you know, it's a hot season and fuel prices are high and getting milk is a Speaker 3 (3:02) challenge. Here on the Food Chain from the BBC World Service with me, Ruth Alexander, we're finding out what it really takes to eat a healthy and varied diet. Why? Depending on where you live and what you earn, that can be harder than it sounds. And getting some tips for eating well as cheaply as possible. Let's hear more now from Frances, who sent us this voice note from her home near Lagos. Speaker 1 (3:27) I eat the normal staple foods, yam, rice, beans, and there is meat. There is meat, but it's not as much as it used to be. It's very, very hard to find healthy foods here. Like when I get to even buy fruits, fruits as little as grape. When my children see it, it will be like they saw something. that they've never seen before. But these were things they ate ordinarily before. It was always affordable. Now the only fruits that you can get are seasonal fruits, like oranges, African star apple, or what they call it. Besides that, everything is so expensive. That is my challenge here. Speaker 3 (4:13) What Frances is experiencing at home in Nigeria is also visible in the global figures. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, which has been analysing the affordability of nutritious foods across the world, says food prices have risen by around a quarter in recent years because of factors like the global pandemic, the war in Ukraine and conflict in the Middle East. I've been speaking to the FAO chief economist, Maximo Torero Cullen, about how many people this is affecting and what the UN's definition of a healthy diet is. Speaker 5 (4:47) So the major core behind the definition of a healthy diet is diversity. This includes vegetables, fruits, oils and fats, legumes and nuts, starchy staples, animal-sourced foods. Speaker 3 (4:59) So how affordable is a healthy diet? Speaker 5 (5:03) So when we look at affordability, what we found is that 32.7 % of the population cannot afford a healthy diet. They are entirely priced out of a healthy diet. Speaker 3 (5:15) So that means that almost one in three people around the world can't afford a healthy diet. Speaker 5 (5:21) Exactly. Speaker 3 (5:22) That's 2.7 billion people. The most hard-to-afford foods tend to be vegetables, fruits and animal-sourced foods. In some low- and middle-income nations, poor roads and a lack of cold storage can make fresh food more expensive still, particularly in remote areas. But getting produce to market... isn't necessarily the end of the problem. In Lagos, Francis will sometimes hesitate to buy it, even when she has the cash. Speaker 1 (5:51) I can't even freeze or refrigerate things because there is no electricity for your fridge to run. And the fuel, petrol, is so expensive, so you can't even get that for your generator to run so that you can refrigerate your food. The challenge is there is even when you bring out your money, the little you have to make do and buy something, it ends up that it's spoiled. Yeah, for the past couple of years, it's been really hard feeding the family on good nutrition. Francis Speaker 3 (6:35) is in Nigeria, but where is a healthy diet most expensive? Maximo's team has compared countries around the world. taking into account how much food money can buy in each one. Speaker 5 (6:46) The surprise is that you have a region like Latin America and the Caribbean and South America where we see that the cost of the health food diet is the highest in the world. And the question that you ask yourself is, OK, why is this? Because this region is a key exporter of food to the world. But internally, markets are not developed so that you can distribute it also locally in your market. So their population have to pay the highest cost. So for the poor segments of... population in each country, of course they won't be able to afford it. Speaker 3 (7:13) So a healthy diet costs most in Latin America, followed by Asia. But it's in Africa where the greatest proportion of people are priced out. Speaker 5 (7:22) 66.6 % of Africa population could not afford a healthy diet in 2025. Speaker 3 (7:27) That's two thirds of people. Speaker 5 (7:29) Exactly. Speaker 3 (7:30) I mean, that's just huge. Like, that's just a huge number.