Objective: To examine the variety of fruits and vegetables lower income households in the USA can buy while meeting Federal dietary recommendations at different levels of expenditure.
Design: Simulation techniques were used to create 3000 market baskets of fruits and vegetables. All baskets contained enough food for a four-person household to meet dietary recommendations for fruits and vegetables over 1 week. Each basket's retail value was estimated along with the ability of a representative household to afford each basket with different levels of expenditure.
Setting: We used data from the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Fruit and Vegetable Prices data product which reports a US household's costs to buy each of 157 different fruit and vegetable products per edible cup equivalent.
Participants: We consider the situation facing a lower income household that receives maximum benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). These benefits are enough for the household to obtain a nutritious and palatable diet without spending any of its own money on food if it approximately follows USDA's Thrifty Food Plan.
Results: Households receiving maximum SNAP benefits can buy a sufficient variety and quantity of fruits and vegetables if they allocate about 40 % of those benefits to these two food groups. However, if households spend less than that amount, the variety of products they can buy while still satisfying recommendations drops off quickly.
Conclusion: Households that move fruits and vegetables to the centre of their budgets can better afford to meet Federal dietary guidelines.
Keywords: Food budgeting; Fruit and Vegetable Prices; MyPlate; Nutrition education; Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; Thrifty Food Plan.