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Cost-Minimized Nutritionally Adequate Food Baskets as Basis for Culturally Adapted Dietary Guidelines for Ethiopians

The high prevalence of undernutrition, especially stunting, in Ethiopia hampers the country’s economic productivity and national development. One of the obstacles to overcome undernutrition is the relatively high cost of food for low economic groups. In this study, linear programming was used to (i)...

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Autores principales: Gurmu, Abdi Bekele, Nykänen, Esa-Pekka A., Alemayehu, Fikadu Reta, Robertson, Aileen, Parlesak, Alexandr
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6770709/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31505826
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu11092159
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author Gurmu, Abdi Bekele
Nykänen, Esa-Pekka A.
Alemayehu, Fikadu Reta
Robertson, Aileen
Parlesak, Alexandr
author_facet Gurmu, Abdi Bekele
Nykänen, Esa-Pekka A.
Alemayehu, Fikadu Reta
Robertson, Aileen
Parlesak, Alexandr
author_sort Gurmu, Abdi Bekele
collection PubMed
description The high prevalence of undernutrition, especially stunting, in Ethiopia hampers the country’s economic productivity and national development. One of the obstacles to overcome undernutrition is the relatively high cost of food for low economic groups. In this study, linear programming was used to (i) identify urban and rural nutritionally adequate food baskets (FBs) with the highest affordability for an Ethiopian family of five and (ii) create urban and rural FBs, optimized for cultural acceptability, which are affordable for a family with the lowest income. Nutritionally adequate rural and urban FBs with highest affordability cost as little as Ethiopian Birr (ETB) 31 and 38 (~USD 1.07 and 1.31), respectively, but have poor dietary diversity (16 and 19 foods). FBs that cost ETB 71.2 (~USD 2.45) contained 64 and 48 foods, respectively, and were much more similar to the food supply pattern reported by FAO (15% and 19% average relative deviation per food category). The composed FBs, which are affordable for the greater part of the Ethiopian population, may serve as a basis for the development of culturally acceptable food-based dietary guidelines. These guidelines would recommend a diet composed of approximately up to 60% cereals, up to 20% roots and tubers, 10% legumes, and 10% fruits and vegetables by weight, plus only a small share from animal foods.
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spelling pubmed-67707092019-10-30 Cost-Minimized Nutritionally Adequate Food Baskets as Basis for Culturally Adapted Dietary Guidelines for Ethiopians Gurmu, Abdi Bekele Nykänen, Esa-Pekka A. Alemayehu, Fikadu Reta Robertson, Aileen Parlesak, Alexandr Nutrients Article The high prevalence of undernutrition, especially stunting, in Ethiopia hampers the country’s economic productivity and national development. One of the obstacles to overcome undernutrition is the relatively high cost of food for low economic groups. In this study, linear programming was used to (i) identify urban and rural nutritionally adequate food baskets (FBs) with the highest affordability for an Ethiopian family of five and (ii) create urban and rural FBs, optimized for cultural acceptability, which are affordable for a family with the lowest income. Nutritionally adequate rural and urban FBs with highest affordability cost as little as Ethiopian Birr (ETB) 31 and 38 (~USD 1.07 and 1.31), respectively, but have poor dietary diversity (16 and 19 foods). FBs that cost ETB 71.2 (~USD 2.45) contained 64 and 48 foods, respectively, and were much more similar to the food supply pattern reported by FAO (15% and 19% average relative deviation per food category). The composed FBs, which are affordable for the greater part of the Ethiopian population, may serve as a basis for the development of culturally acceptable food-based dietary guidelines. These guidelines would recommend a diet composed of approximately up to 60% cereals, up to 20% roots and tubers, 10% legumes, and 10% fruits and vegetables by weight, plus only a small share from animal foods. MDPI 2019-09-09 /pmc/articles/PMC6770709/ /pubmed/31505826 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu11092159 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Gurmu, Abdi Bekele
Nykänen, Esa-Pekka A.
Alemayehu, Fikadu Reta
Robertson, Aileen
Parlesak, Alexandr
Cost-Minimized Nutritionally Adequate Food Baskets as Basis for Culturally Adapted Dietary Guidelines for Ethiopians
title Cost-Minimized Nutritionally Adequate Food Baskets as Basis for Culturally Adapted Dietary Guidelines for Ethiopians
title_full Cost-Minimized Nutritionally Adequate Food Baskets as Basis for Culturally Adapted Dietary Guidelines for Ethiopians
title_fullStr Cost-Minimized Nutritionally Adequate Food Baskets as Basis for Culturally Adapted Dietary Guidelines for Ethiopians
title_full_unstemmed Cost-Minimized Nutritionally Adequate Food Baskets as Basis for Culturally Adapted Dietary Guidelines for Ethiopians
title_short Cost-Minimized Nutritionally Adequate Food Baskets as Basis for Culturally Adapted Dietary Guidelines for Ethiopians
title_sort cost-minimized nutritionally adequate food baskets as basis for culturally adapted dietary guidelines for ethiopians
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6770709/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31505826
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu11092159
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