How expensive is a healthy diet in Europe? Using Linear Programming as a standardised method for calculating European...

Area of Science:

• Nutrition Science
• Public Health Policy
• Computational Economics

Background:

• The European Pillar of Social Rights mandates adequate income for a healthy diet, yet food insecurity persists.
• Existing methods for determining Food Reference Budgets (FRBs) lack representativeness and are often normative.
• There is a critical need for objective and comparable FRBs across European Union (EU) member states.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore Linear Programming (LP) as a novel method for calculating FRBs in 26 EU member states.
• To design country-specific food baskets reflecting both consumption habits and healthy diet guidelines.
• To assess the affordability of healthy diets across different European countries.

Main Methods:

• Utilized Linear Programming to construct optimized, healthy food baskets for 26 EU countries.
• Employed EU Household Budget Survey (EU-HBS) data (2015, with variations for specific countries) for consumption patterns.
• Priced the designed food baskets to determine the daily cost of healthy diets.

Main Results:

• Optimized healthy food baskets showed a positive correlation with observed diets, incorporating country-specific preferences.
• Increased consumption of vegetables, fruits, fish, and dairy is recommended to meet healthy diet requirements.
• Food Reference Budgets at a low-price level varied from €2.38 to €5.71 per day, representing 5.74% to 29.00% of income across countries.

Conclusions:

• Linear Programming presents a viable and promising approach for establishing uniform and comparable European FRBs.
• The findings support the modernization of European minimum income schemes by providing data on healthy diet costs.
• LP methodology offers a more objective and representative alternative to traditional FRB calculation methods.