The Thrifty Food Plan, 1999: Revisions of the Market Baskets

Family Economics and Nutrition Review, Wntr, 2001 by Mark Lino

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Thrifty Food Plan (TFP) serves as a national standard for a nutritious diet at a minimal cost. It represents a set of market baskets, each applicable to 1 of 12 age-gender groups. Each market basket contains a selection of foods in quantities that reflect current dietary recommendations, actual consumption patterns, food composition data, and food prices. The TFP is one of four official USDA food plans (the others being the Low-Cost Plan, the Moderate-Cost Plan, and the Liberal Plan) and is maintained by the USDA Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP). The TFP is used by the Federal Government to provide food and economic information to consumers preparing food on a limited budget. It also serves as the basis for food stamp allotments.

CNPP recently revised the TFP market baskets to reflect recent changes in dietary guidance as well as to incorporate updated information on food composition, consumption patterns, and food prices. This article provides background information on the updated TFP market baskets and describes the data sources, dietary standards, and methods used to revise the TFP market baskets,[1] The TFP market baskets were last revised in 1983 with data from USDA's 1977-78 Nationwide Food Consumption Survey (9).

Data

Two main data sources were used in revising the TFP market baskets: the USDA 1989-91 Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals (CSFII) and the Food Price Database. The Food Price Database was created by CNPP, with assistance from the USDA Economic Research Service, by merging food items from the CSFII with national data on food prices.

1989-91 Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals

The CSFII provides detailed information on people's reported intake of food at home and away from home, as well as extensive demographic and socioeconomic information. The CSFII is nationally representative of individuals living in households in the 48 coterminous States. Lower income households are oversampled to increase the precision level in analyses of this group. Sampling weights to make the sample representative of the U.S. population were used in this study.

For the 1989-91 CSFII, dietary intakes of individuals were collected over 3 nonconsecutive days. Day-1 data were collected by using in-person interviews and a 24-hour dietary recall.[2] This study used the Day-1 food intake data of individuals ages 1 and older in households with income at or below 130 percent of the U.S. poverty threshold. For children under age 12, the parent or main meal planner furnished the information, often with the child's help.

Individuals with household income at or below 130 percent of the poverty threshold were included in this study because this income level represents the upper threshold for determining eligibility to participate in the Food Stamp Program. The final sample consisted of about 7,800 individuals ages 1 and older from low-income households. These individuals reported consuming about 4,800 different foods. Information on the ingredients, nutrient content, and amount consumed of each of these foods is recorded in the CSFII data sets.

Food Price Database

The Food Price Database was constructed specifically for this study by merging information from the CSFII on foods consumed with price data from national data sets. This was required because while the CSFII has extensive information on reported food intake, it does not contain information on either food prices or food expenditures. The earlier Nationwide Food Consumption Surveys used in the development of previous food plans did include information on household food expenditures from which food costs were derived. For this study, creation of the Food Price Database involved

(1) identifying all foods that were reported in the CSFII as having been consumed at home and away from home and, by using recipes, disaggregating them into their specific ingredients,

(2) adjusting ingredient quantities for cooking and waste factors, when appropriate, to convert foods to a purchasable form,[3]

(3) pricing the purchasable ingredients by using national retail price databases, and

(4) converting the priced retail ingredients back to the consumed form of the food, with a price now attached.

To determine retail prices to calculate the costs of foods, CNPP used four sources of data: (1) the A.C. Nielsen Scantrack system, which was used to price most food ingredients, (2) Department of Labor price data for miscellaneous foods (Bureau of Labor Statistics), (3) USDA price data for fresh produce and meat (Agricultural Marketing Service), and (4) Department of Commerce price data for fish (National Marine Fisheries Service). The average price of all brands (including national, store, and generic) of a food ingredient was used to price that food ingredient. For example, the average price of all brands of whole milk was used to price whole milk, and the average price of all types of corn flakes was used to price corn flakes. Food ingredients were priced in dollar amounts per 100 grams; the CSFII Survey Code Book and Survey Recipe File, together with label information on supermarket products, were used to convert fluid ounces to gram weights.