Abstract
Objectives To compare the cost, nutritional and food variety contents of commercial meals and published infant and young child feeding (IYCF) home-cooked recipes, and to compare nutritional contents to age-specific recommendations.
Design Cross-sectional study.
Setting Full range of pre-prepared main-meals available within the UK market. Main meal recipes identified from a survey of Amazon’s top 20 bestsellers and IYCF cookbooks available from local libraries.
Samples 278 commercial IYCF savoury meals from UK market and 408 home-cooked recipes from bestselling IYCF published cookbooks.
Main Outcome Measures Cost and nutritional content per 100g and food variety per meal for both commercial meals and home-cooked recipes.
Results Commercial products provided more ‘vegetable’ variety per meal (median=3.0; r=-0.33) than home-cooked recipes (2.0). Recipes provided 26% more energy and 44% more protein and total fat compared to commercial products (r=-0.40, -0.31, -0.40 respectively) whilst costing less (£0.33/100g and £0.68/100g respectively). The majority of commercial products (65%) met energy density recommendations but 50% of home-cooked recipes exceeded the maximum range.
Conclusions The majority of commercial meals provided an energy dense meal with greater vegetable variety per meal to their home-cooked counterparts. Home-cooked recipes provided a cheaper meal option however the majority exceeded recommendations for energy and fats.
Design Cross-sectional study.
Setting Full range of pre-prepared main-meals available within the UK market. Main meal recipes identified from a survey of Amazon’s top 20 bestsellers and IYCF cookbooks available from local libraries.
Samples 278 commercial IYCF savoury meals from UK market and 408 home-cooked recipes from bestselling IYCF published cookbooks.
Main Outcome Measures Cost and nutritional content per 100g and food variety per meal for both commercial meals and home-cooked recipes.
Results Commercial products provided more ‘vegetable’ variety per meal (median=3.0; r=-0.33) than home-cooked recipes (2.0). Recipes provided 26% more energy and 44% more protein and total fat compared to commercial products (r=-0.40, -0.31, -0.40 respectively) whilst costing less (£0.33/100g and £0.68/100g respectively). The majority of commercial products (65%) met energy density recommendations but 50% of home-cooked recipes exceeded the maximum range.
Conclusions The majority of commercial meals provided an energy dense meal with greater vegetable variety per meal to their home-cooked counterparts. Home-cooked recipes provided a cheaper meal option however the majority exceeded recommendations for energy and fats.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1037-1042 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | Archives of Disease in Childhood |
| Volume | 101 |
| Issue number | 11 |
| Early online date | 19 Oct 2016 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Nov 2016 |
Bibliographical note
Funding This study was funded by the Seafish Authority and Interface Food and Drink Scotland as part of a PhD scholarship for SAC. This work was supported by The Scottish Government’s Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services (RESAS) division (LCAC grant).Keywords
- infant feeding
- commercial foods
- home-cooked
- food variety
- child feeding