HEALTH, DIET AND LOW INCOME

Health, Diet and Low Income

Health, Diet and Low Income

Introduction

The issues related to supply and demand for food offer a fairly approximate food and nutrition situation, because as we know, for a population to have adequate food welfare is necessary to have food in sufficient quality and quantity. But there is enough food in adequate amounts, is also necessary that they are physically accessible to the population, which requires the existence of a marketing system that puts food in close proximity to the buyer and the way that he sought.

Also, people must have purchasing power to obtain the food they need as well as cultural and educational conditions for the selection and distribution within the family. It is widely known that nutritional problems have serious negative effects on developing bio-psycho-social individual and the community, so it is increasingly accepted the imperative to establish minimum food to ensure the satisfaction of this basic need. The concept of "desirable food availability" is such a social minimum that have been established for the population, based on an adequate supply of food will help to solve nutritional problems. On the other hand, the food intake of the population has been used very often as an indicator of nutritional status of a community.

The diet plans, suggestions for planning menus, purchasing food, suggestions for economic planning, and storage and food preparation in a low-cost diet that will follow are some very basic lineaments.



Method

A good nutritionist should be aware that the food value is not based on price but on its nutritive value. Generally, the cost of food is the item that comes in second place in the budget of many families. Of course the cost of various foods is influenced by several factors. It is obvious that higher income families spend a high amount on food and on the contrary lower income families spend a lower amount on it.

Within the food group, the approximate percentage of spending group of proteins is larger and more expensive, second is a group of dairy and thirdly is the group of vegetables and cereals and finally the fruit, by this is meant that the cost of food varies in nutrients they provide. The cost distribution of food in the shopping list is approximately:

50% in milk, meat and eggs (15£)

30% in cereals, seeds, oils, sugar and others (9£)

20% Vegetables and Fruits (6£)

The daily menus, shopping list and plan to purchase food made by families who prepare meals, diets can be classified into three groups:

Low cost

Average cost

Higher costs.

In some countries, government programs are designed to help needy families to purchase food. When making food plans at different levels of cost we will use several criteria:

Nutritional food

Relative cost of various food groups as sources of specific nutrients

Appropriateness of certain foods

Family preferences in food

Availability and food prices

Discussion

For families with low income, the draft contains substantially lower cost, potatoes, vegetables and cereals, cheaper cuts of meat and certain viscera, which typically provide nutritional ...