A low- income family of five will need a daily budget of P693 to afford the cheapest raw food for a healthy plate.
That’s according to research made by the Ateneo Policy Center, indicating that a food budget of about P138 pesos per person is needed for three healthy meals.
The study was released last May, months before the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) made a statement Filipinos need P64 per meal per person to not be considered food poor.
The research the amount does not include other ingredients to cook the meals, and assumes the individual will eat the same menu the entire day, said Dr. Jaime Galvez Tan, former health secretary and now convenor of Healthy Philippines Alliance, a non-government group that promotes policy changes for public health.
“We emphasize that P64 for three meals a day does not suffice to meet a healthy diet for one person,” he said.
Researchers from the Ateneo Policy Center used the cheapest food options indicated in the January 2024 Retail Prices of Agricultural Commodities from the Philippine Statistics Authority to populate food guide or the “pinggang pinoy” (Filipino plate) program by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI) and the Department of Science and Technology in collaboration with the Department of Health.
The study established the total cost for a typical plate. Raw ingredients for the cheapest plate will cost around P46.20 in the National Capital Region while the average cost in the Philippines as whole is around P43.80. For a family of 5 (i.e. the average family size for poor or low income Filipino families), it would require a daily budget of around P693.30 in the Philippines and P655.20 in FNRI.
“We urge NEDA (National Economic and Development Authority) to update their food basket based on current food prices that will meet a balanced and nutritious diet following FNRI’s (Food and Nutrition Research Institute) Pinggang Pinoy model where each meal must contain fruits and vegetables, meat or fish, and whole grains like rice,” Tan said.
This will help the government formulate a more realistic standard to classify Filipinos as no longer “food poor” and will better inform of gaps that must be addressed like food costs and availability, and health literacy, he added.
Released in 2016, the easy-to-understand Pinggang Pinoy food guide uses a familiar food plate model to convey the right food group proportions on a per-meal basis to meet the body’s energy and nutrient needs of Filipinos.
The visual guide shows how much and what kind to eat in one meal in order to be healthy.
It was developed in collaboration with the World Health Organization, Department of Health and the National Nutrition Council.
The Pinggang Pinoy for teenagers, for example, shows the recommended proportion by food group in every meal for male and female adolescents. It includes a variety of food per meal from each of the three food groups.
They include go foods, the energy-giving foods; grow foods, the body-building foods; and glow foods, the body-regulating foods.
The Pinggang Pinoy for teens shows that half of the plate is for glow foods with a greater proportion of vegetables than fruits. This means they should eat more vegetables than fruits. The other half consists of go and grow foods, with go foods of greater proportion compared to the grow foods.
The go foods is represented by rice which is the primary energy source of Filipinos; other go foods are corn, bread and root crops. The grow foods is represented by milkfish or bangus, which is a commonly eaten fish. Other examples of grow foods are meat, eggs, poultry, fish and legumes.
The glow foods is represented by banana, one of the favorite fruits in the country, and by malunggay, a popularly grown vegetable.
“As we strive to improve the overall food, nutrition, and healthy-eating environment for Filipinos, poor families tend to purchase cheaper and easy-to-prepare food which can include ultra-processed foods like instant noodles or canned meat that have inadequate nutrients and too much sugar, sodium or fats,” Tan said.
“This unhealthy diet increases the risk of undernutrition and other noncommunicable diseases like diabetes, cancer and heart disease,” he added.
