Media Contact: Jennifer Martin, (202) 720-8188 March 30, 2009
With the current economic climate, it’s increasingly important
to understand the relationship between food cost and nutrition.
There has been a longstanding debate whether foods packed with
calories, but low in nutritional value, are more accessible and
affordable than foods that cost more but are more
nutritious—especially for low-income individuals and families. A
group of scientists in California and Washington decided to add
evidence to the debate. Researchers at the University of
California – Davis and the University of Washington tested their
hypothesis that lower-cost diets among low-income women would be
higher in calories but lower in nutrients. Their tests concluded
that the more energy-dense (high-calorie) the diet, the less
nutritious it is likely to be. Additionally, low-income women
who ate more nutritious diets spent more money per calorie than
those who ate less nutritious diets. The study recruited low-
income women from four counti