Veggies, fruits lose favour in urban households: Study

Tomatoes, potatoes and onions were most common vegetables in households surveyed

As you gorged on your favourite food to beat the lockdown blues, you perhaps moved plates away from a balanced diet. This is the crux of a first-of-its-kind dietary study conducted on urban households.

Most families ate fruits just once a week

While a balanced diet is the foundation to immunity, the study found that city dwellers didn't eat enough pulses, vegetables and fruits, compromising their nutritional status. The survey, which was recently published in the journal Nutrition and Health, interacted with 450 households.

"While the lockdown witnessed a number of changes, it also impacted the agri-food supply chain. The aim of the study was to explore the diet diversity of urban households during the lockdown. The findings suggest that access and availability of the food items remained largely unaffected in the urban areas during the lockdown," said Dr Rita Patil, associate professor and the head of Department of Food and Nutrition at Maniben Nanavati Women's College who co-authored the study.

The households were chosen from Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and they were not under quarantine restrictions. "We calculated the Food Variety Score (FVS) of the household depending on commonly eaten foods that fell in nine groups: cereals and millets; pulses and legumes; nuts; milk and milk products; meat; vegetables; fruits; sugar; and fats," said Dr Patil. She added that despite the fact that the majority of the households belonged to the upper-middle and upper socioeconomic status, they reported poor diet diversity.

Also Read: How you can use good nutrition practices instead of fad diets for weight loss

Most of the families seemed to prefer processed cereal alternatives such as bread (77.1 per cent) and breakfast cereals (62.2 per cent) rather than millets and legumes. On a positive note, over 90 per cent of the households took milk daily, and two-thirds consumed curd every day.

"In India, milk is considered to be a wholesome food that promotes growth during childhood and adolescence. During the pandemic, milk with turmeric was being promoted as an immunity-building home remedy. Besides this, turmeric milk and curd have been integral immune-boosting foods in a traditional Indian diet. Curd, being a probiotic, plays a vital role in promoting healthy gut microbiota. We therefore saw many households having a good intake of milk and milk products," explained Dr Patil.

Vegetables and fruits did not get enough attention. "The most commonly consumed vegetables on a daily basis were tomatoes, onions and potatoes. Many of the Indian curries and gravies have onion and tomato as the base. Potatoes are an integral part of cooking in several Indian households. The remaining vegetables were consumed by 60-70 per cent of the households. However, their frequency of consumption was not more than once a week," she said. Likewise, the majority of the fruits were consumed in 75-80 per cent of the households at least once a week.

About 85 per cent of the households surveyed were better-off. "The higher socioeconomic groups are considered to be more health-conscious. Consumption of healthy diverse diets needs to be promoted more than ever before to enhance our nutritional status and immunity," said Dr Patil.

77.1
Percentage of families that used cereal alternatives like bread

62.2
Percentage that preferred breakfast cereals to millets and legumes