Australian Nutritional Report Card

Recently the Australian Health Survey: Usual Nutrient Intakes report was released jointly by the Australian bureau of Statistics and Food Standards Australia New Zealand.

It is the largest survey of the dietary intake of the Australian population ever done. The survey was done by interviewing a group of more than 12000 people about what they had eaten and drunk in the previous 24 hours.

The following are a summary of some of the results;

• 73% of females and 51% of males, over two years old, are not meeting their daily calcium requirement.
• 25% of people have at least 100g of sugar daily
• 47% of males and 30% of females, between 51-70 years old, got more than 5% of their total daily recommended  energy intake from alcohol.
• Around 9% of females and 2% of males are not getting enough folate.
• 25% of females do not have enough iron in their diets.
• At least 95% of Australians are meeting their protein, Vitamin c, selenium, phosphorous and B12 dietary requirements.

A further important finding was that we all generally consume in excess of the recommended upper level of sodium, and that does not include any sodium added when cooking or at our tables. This reinforces why there is a lot of work being done in the food industry to reduce the sodium level of processed foods.

An interesting finding from the survey was that the median consumption of coffee pods is 1.5 per person per day. That is a lot of coffee and, even more importantly, a lot of waste.

This survey and it’s results have a lot of potential impact on health policies and directions for the future.

Written by Rachelle Williams, The Green Food Safety Coach.