Cost of a Nutritious Diet
Eating enough calories is cheap. Eating well is not. Explore how much a healthy diet costs, who can afford it, and why nutritious food remains out of reach for billions.
That is 42% of the global population. A healthy diet costs an average of $3.96 per person per day — more than four times the cost of merely getting enough calories.
The Economics of Eating Well
The cost of a nutritious diet is one of the most consequential metrics in global food policy. Produced annually by the FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, and WHO as part of the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report, these figures use international food price data to estimate what it actually costs to eat a diet that meets nutritional guidelines in each country. The methodology compares three tiers: an energy-sufficient diet (just calories), a nutrient-adequate diet (meeting micronutrient requirements), and a healthy diet (following food-based dietary guidelines with appropriate diversity).
The gap between these tiers reveals a stark inequality. In high-income countries, the difference between a calorie-only diet and a healthy diet is barely noticeable relative to average income. But in low-income countries, a healthy diet can cost more than an entire day's earnings. The result is a world where billions of people have access to enough calories but cannot afford the dietary diversity needed to prevent malnutrition, stunting, anaemia, and diet-related chronic disease. This is not a problem of food production — the world produces enough food — it is a problem of affordability and access.
The data below breaks down diet affordability by country and region, showing where the cost barrier is most severe. Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia face the greatest challenges, with affordability gaps driven by a combination of low incomes, high local food prices (particularly for nutrient-dense foods like fruits, vegetables, and animal-source products), and limited market infrastructure. These visualisations also explore how diet cost relates to health outcomes — countries where healthy diets are least affordable tend to carry the heaviest burdens of both undernutrition and micronutrient deficiency.
Three Levels of Diet Quality
The gap between filling your stomach and truly nourishing your body is a $3.05 difference per day — but that gap is insurmountable for billions.
Who Cannot Afford a Healthy Diet?
The affordability gap varies enormously by region. In Sub-Saharan Africa, more than 4 in 5 people cannot afford the recommended diet.
Source: FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, WHO — The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (2023)
Income vs. Diet Cost: The Affordability Wall
This scatter plot compares the daily income of the poorest 40% against the cost of a healthy diet. Countries below the diagonal line cannot afford to eat well from income alone.
Bubble size represents the percentage of the population that cannot afford a healthy diet. The diagonal dashed line marks where 100% of income is spent on food.
Source: World Bank, FAO — Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet (CoAHD), 2022
The Affordability Gap
How much of the bottom 40%’s daily income would a healthy diet consume? For billions, the answer is “more than they earn.”
The dashed vertical line marks 100% — where the entire daily income of the poorest 40% is spent on food. Countries to the right cannot afford a healthy diet from income alone.
Source: World Bank, FAO — Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet (CoAHD), 2022
What Makes a Healthy Diet Expensive?
Animal-source foods and fruits together account for over half the cost. Starchy staples — the foods billions rely on — make up just 11% of the price.
Source: FAO, IFPRI — Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet (CoAHD), 2022
Rising Costs, Rising Crisis
The cost of a healthy diet has risen 21% since 2017. The number of people who cannot afford one has grown alongside it.
The Paradox of Cost
The cheapest foods — starchy staples like rice, maize, and cassava — provide calories but little else. The foods that prevent chronic disease — fruits, vegetables, nuts, fish, and dairy — are precisely the ones that cost the most. This means the global nutrition crisis is not a failure of total food production. The world produces enough calories. The crisis is that nutritious food is a luxury that billions cannot afford. Closing this gap requires making diverse, micronutrient-rich foods cheaper and more accessible, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a healthy diet cost per day?
According to the FAO and World Bank, the global average cost of a healthy diet was $3.96 per person per day in 2022. This varies by region: from around $3.43 in Europe & Central Asia to $4.26 in East Asia & Pacific. This is more than four times the cost of a diet that merely provides enough calories ($0.91/day).
How many people cannot afford a healthy diet?
As of 2022, approximately 3.1 billion people — 42% of the global population — cannot afford a healthy diet. The situation is most severe in Sub-Saharan Africa (82%) and South Asia (68%). Even in middle-income countries like India, over 70% of the population cannot afford the recommended diverse diet.
What makes a healthy diet expensive?
Animal-source foods (meat, dairy, eggs) account for about 31% of the cost of a healthy diet, making them the most expensive component. Fruits contribute 22% and vegetables 19%. In contrast, starchy staples like rice and wheat are cheap (11% of cost) but lack the micronutrient diversity needed for good health. The cost gap between merely filling and truly nourishing food is the core barrier to global nutrition.
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See also: Deficiency Atlas · Nutrition Transition · Planetary Health Diet · All Country Comparisons