Why Is Nutritious Food Becoming a Luxury for Billions Around the World?

COLOMBO (News 1st); The cost of maintaining a healthy diet has increased sharply across the world, pushing nutritious food beyond the reach of billions of people and deepening concerns over global food security, according to a senior United Nations official.

Máximo Torero Cullen, Chief Economist of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), revealed that the global cost of a healthy diet has risen by 25 percent in just five years, reaching US$4.28 per person per day in purchasing power parity terms.

As a result, an estimated 2.69 billion people, nearly one in every three people worldwide, remain unable to afford a healthy diet.

Highlighting the scale of the challenge, Torero noted that the global cost of a healthy diet now exceeds the international extreme poverty threshold of approximately US$3 per person per day, underscoring the widening gap between incomes and access to nutritious food.

He stressed that the issue is not a lack of calories, but rather the affordability of nutritious foods. According to the report, staple foods provide around half of the calories required for a healthy diet while accounting for only 13 percent of its overall cost. In contrast, fruits and vegetables contribute just 5 percent of total calories but make up 16 percent of the cost of a healthy diet, making them significantly more expensive than staple cereals.

Animal-source foods were identified as another major cost component, accounting for nearly 30 percent of the total expense of a healthy diet.

Torero said the findings demonstrate that global food systems are capable of producing sufficient calories, but face major difficulties in ensuring affordable access to nutrient-rich foods. He emphasized that reducing the cost of healthy diets will depend on making nutritious foods more accessible and affordable to consumers.

The report also found that between 70 and 75 percent of the cost of a healthy diet is generated after food leaves the farm, pointing to inefficiencies further along the food value chain rather than at the production stage itself.

According to Torero, the most significant bottlenecks are found in storage, transportation, processing, cold-chain logistics and wholesale markets, all of which contribute substantially to the final price consumers pay for nutritious foods.

To address these challenges, he called for action in three key areas: reducing structural costs across food value chains, particularly beyond the farm gate; redirecting policies and investments towards nutrient-dense foods rather than systems that prioritize calorie production over nutrition; and strengthening evidence-based policymaking through improved local data and closer coordination between agriculture, health, trade and social protection sectors.

Torero emphasized that the cost of a healthy diet should not be viewed merely as another statistical indicator, but as a critical measure of the effectiveness of food systems. He warned that failure to tackle the issue would result in continuing hidden economic and social costs, including rising rates of overweight, obesity and related health problems, alongside persistent food insecurity affecting billions around the world.