Eating a healthy diet, for millions of African families, goes beyond just making better food choices as it is emerging that the price of nutrition itself can be a major barrier.
Prof. Christine Taljaard-Krugell, an associate professor at North-West University’s Centre of Excellence for Nutrition and a registered dietitian, says even the cheapest nutritious foods can cost between two and ten times more per calorie than maize meal.
This price gap helps explain why many households continue to depend heavily on staples such as maize, rice and cassava. These foods provide affordable energy, but children also need protein and micronutrients such as iron, zinc, vitamin A and iodine to grow properly.
Prof. Taljaard-Krugell identifies beans, cowpeas and groundnuts as some of the most affordable sources of iron, zinc and folate. Dark green leafy vegetables, pumpkin, orange-fleshed sweet potato, mango and papaya can provide vitamin A relatively cheaply.
Small dried fish eaten whole, including the bones, can be particularly valuable, supplying protein, iron, calcium and vitamin B12 in a single food.
But even these relatively affordable options come with hidden costs. Pulses may be cheap to buy but expensive to cook because they require hours of fuel. Fruits and vegetables can become considerably more expensive outside their growing season, while a lack of refrigeration can cause them to spoil before they are consumed.
“Even the cheapest nutritious foods cost two to ten times more per calorie than maize meal. Eggs, chicken and beef are further out of reach again, and are largely unaffordable to African households,” the dietician noted.
Animal-source foods are even more difficult for poorer households to afford, with eggs, chicken and beef largely out of reach for many African families. The practical solution, according to Taljaard-Krugell, is not to replace affordable staples but to improve what is served alongside them.
Adding beans, peas or groundnuts to maize-based meals, incorporating leafy vegetables and using small amounts of oil can increase the nutritional value of familiar foods without requiring households to completely change their diets.
The challenge, however, remains economic. When nutritious foods cost substantially more than staple calories, telling poor families simply to diversify their diets ignores the financial reality determining what appears on the plate.
