Surveying Global and Iranian Food Consumption Patterns: A Review of the Literature

Identifying global and regional food consumption patterns, which vary in different countries, races, social classes, and cultures will be beneficial in training individuals, promoting food literacy, and nutrition policy making. In order to compare Iranian and global food consumption patterns, a number of relevant key terms were selected and the existing quality literature databases (both in English and in Persian) were queried for manuscripts related to the subject. The articles were published until the current time (2014). Manual searches were also performed on regional and national projects in Iran. Finally, out of 65 studies on various food patterns, 39 were recruited. Our findings indicated that per capita calorie consumption in Iran is higher than the recommended daily values. In fact, per capita intakes of bread and rice, oil, and sugar were respectively 5%, 20%, and 38% higher than the rates in the standard food basket. In addition, consumption of milk and dairy products, eggs, and fruits and vegetables was 25%, 20%, and 25% lower than the recommended values, respectively. Changes in global food consumption patterns suggested a nutrition transition leading to serious undesirable effects on people’s health. Therefore, nutrition policy making and planning is needed to focus on controlling the nutrition transition while bearing sociocultural aspects of food consumption in mind.