The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2026—published jointly by FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO—estimates the minimum cost of a healthy diet and whether income makes that cost affordable.
The global price of a healthy diet
In 2025, an estimated 2.69 billion people could not afford the minimum cost of a healthy diet.
2.69 billion people
Average minimum cost of a healthy diet
PPP dollars / person / day
Fewer people, a higher minimum cost
The estimate fell from 2.97 billion people in 2021 to 2.69 billion in 2025.
The global share also fell from 37.4% to 32.7%. At the same time, the global average minimum cost rose from 2.94 PPP dollars per person per day in 2017 to 4.28 in 2025.
Regional differences remain large: SOFI 2026 estimates that 66.6% of Africa’s population could not afford a healthy diet in 2025. A global average does not show each region’s combination of prices and incomes.
Check the unit before comparing it with your budget
The $4.28 PPP figure does not mean spending US$4.28 at a local grocery store.
Purchasing power parity adjusts for price differences across countries. The minimum cost is built from the least expensive foods that satisfy national food-based dietary guidelines. It does not model an actual household’s tastes, cooking equipment, travel time, or food waste.
Make it useful at home
Do not convert the global average into local currency. Track one week of food spending, available shops, and cooking time to identify your own constraint.
How MorselFlow fits
A record is for seeing real life—not blaming it.
MorselFlow does not call a bought or quickly assembled meal a failure. It keeps the photo so you can see which choices continued.
A meal chosen within the limits of price, time and availability is still part of your flow.
This article explains international statistics for a general audience. It does not assess an individual food budget or nutrition status. A global PPP indicator cannot be directly converted into one country’s household grocery cost.