IRISH HOUSEHOLDS spent less on meat, eggs and fish during the Celtic Tiger years while there was a significant increased spend on high-fat sweet foods, new research has shown.
Teagasc researchers at Ashtown Research centre looked at expenditure on food in the 10-year period to 2004 when disposable income for the household doubled from €583 to €1,002.
The research funded by the Health Research Board, applied a novel approach to link economic data with potential health outcomes using the latest statistics from the Central Statistics Office household budget survey data.
According to research officer at Teagasc, Sinéad McCarthy, the study found notable changes in the expenditure of disposable household income on various foods in the period studied.
She said expenditure on foods from the top of the internationally recognised food pyramid which places high fat, sweeter foods at the top of the pyramid, had increased significantly.
“This is of concern because the public health advice is to use sparingly and limit consumption of these high-fat, high-sugar foods.”
She said the research had found a decrease in expenditure for meat, eggs and fish while there was little or no change for the other levels of the pyramid where basic foods are placed at the bottom of the structure.
“Despite widespread campaigns to increase fruit and vegetable consumption, expenditure on this category did not change significantly over the decade.”
She said the focus of the research was on the percentage of total food expenditure and used the Department of Agriculture’s pyramid categories to group all the foods purchased. The system is used worldwide to display the nutritional value of different foods.
She said in light of the different circumstance in which we now found ourselves, focus must be maintained on healthy eating.
According to a recent Datamonitor report on health trends, some consumers were looking for healthier foods to mitigate the personal medical costs of ill-health, she added.
“This is a trend that the food industry can address, by creating more health-orientated foods to support healthy eating, healthy living and ultimately a healthier economy,” she said.