Cost and affordability of a nutritious diet in Nova Scotia

Cost and Affordability of a Nutritious Diet in Nova Scotia Report of 2007 Food Costing A project of the Nova Scotia Food Security Network in partnership with community partners, the Department of Health Promotion and Protection, and Mount Saint Vincent University Released April/2008 Cost and Affordability of a Nutritious Diet in Nova Scotia Report of 2007 Food Costing Copyright © Mount Saint Vince [...] Participatory food costing was first conducted in Nova Scotia in 2002 with funding from Health Canada and was then repeated in 2004/2005 and 2007 with the support of the Nova Scotia Department of Health Promotion and Protection.2 This report examines the cost and affordability of a basic nutritious diet in Nova Scotia in 2007. [...] Participatory food costing is a method of doing food costing that includes the participation of those most involved, affected, or potentially affected by food insecurity.11 The Nova Scotia Food Costing Projects have used a participatory research approach to food costing by involving community partners in decision making, in data collection and analysis, and in the use of research results to influe [...] For additional information on the methods for 2007 food costing see Appendix C. Cost and Affordability of a Nutritious Diet in Nova Scotia, 2007 3 Results: The Cost of a Basic Nutritious Diet in Nova Scotia for an Individual The National Nutritious Food Basket can be used to estimate the costs of eating a basic nutritious diet for any family type.23 This cost was calculated for 23 different age an [...] This finding is consistent with our previous food costing research in 2002 and 2004/05.26 Figure 3: Monthly costs of purchasing the National Nutritious Food Basket for the reference household of four in rural and urban areas of Nova Scotia (June 2007)27 For the purposes of this research, rural has been defined as towns and municipalities outside the commuting zone of urban centres with a populatio