One Third of UK Consumers “Struggle to Afford Healthy Food”

24 Apr 2014 --- More than a third of UK adults are struggling to afford healthy food, according to new research. The British Heart Foundation found that 39% of the 2,444 consumers it surveyed said they sacrificed health benefits for cost when doing their grocery shopping.

One in four of those asked said they had not bought a single portion of fresh fruit of vegetables in the last week. And more than half said they wanted to eat more healthily but said cost was a major barrier.

“Healthy eating on a budget is one of the biggest challenges of our times,” confirmed senior BHF dietician, Victoria Taylor. “With the increasing cost of a weekly shopping basket it is a real concern that despite people’s best intentions they are struggling to eat healthily.”

The news follows a report published earlier this month which suggested the five-a-day message should be increased, to encourage people to eat even more portions of fruit and vegetables per day.

Representative bodies from the UK’s food industry slammed the report (published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health), due to its “highly misleading” comments regarding fruit and vegetables and their role in a healthy diet. 

The report, which was based on a University College London study, suggested it might be time to extend the government’s five-a-day message to at least seven portions of fruit and vegetables a day.
It also posed the controversial idea that tinned and frozen fruit may not be helpful in the diet at all. 

However, Barbara Gallani, Director of Regulation, Science and Health at the Food and Drink Federation (FDF), criticized the report’s comments on tinned and frozen products. "Some of the statements included in the report's commentary on the role of frozen, tinned and juiced fruit products in the diet are highly misleading and the interpretation of the data is at odds with other numerous studies in this area,” she explained to Food Ingredients First.

“Prepared and packaged fruit and vegetables make an important contribution to people’s 5-a-day, whether they be fresh, tinned, frozen or dried,” she said. “At a time when two thirds of people are failing to consume the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, conjecture which confuses public health messaging seems reckless."

The study was carried out by experts at the University College London who analyzed lifestyle data for more than 65,000 randomly selected adults aged at least 35, derived from annual national health surveys for England between 2001and 2008. And they tracked recorded deaths from among the sample for an average of 7.5 years.
 
On average, the survey respondents said they had eaten just under four portions of fruit and vegetables the previous day. During the monitoring period 4399 people died (6.7% of the sample).  The analysis revealed that eating fruit and vegetables was associated with a lower risk of death, overall, and deaths from heart disease/stroke and cancer. The higher the intake of fruit and vegetables, the greater the protective effects seemed to be.
 
Eating at least seven daily portions was linked to a 42% lower risk of death from all causes and from cancer and heart disease. Vegetables may be more protective, the figures suggest: two to three daily portions were linked to a 19% lower risk of death, compared with a 10% lower risk for the equivalent amount of fruit.

The unexpected finding in the survey was that people who ate canned or frozen fruit actually had a higher risk of heart disease, stroke or cancer, according to the results. The study showed a portion of frozen/tinned fruit seemed to increase risk of death by 17%.

“This study clearly shows that eating a range of fruit and vegetables is beneficial and that eating more can have a positive impact on our health,” said Terry Jones, Director of Communications at the FDF. “Food and drink producers have long supported the government 5-a-day campaign by making it as easy as possible for people to eat more fruit and vegetables.”