Enquête auprès des associations d’aide alimentaire (E3A) : mode de fonctionnement des structures et valeur nutritionnelle des colis et repas distribués

The E3A survey was conducted in 2003-2004 among food aid charities in France to investigate the difficulties faced by these organizations and to estimate the nutritional quality of delivered food aid. On average, meals and food baskets provided 850 and 800 kcal/d, respectively. Although delivered meals had an acceptable nutritional quality, food baskets had a high energy density (160 kcal/100g) and low nutrient densities. The nutritional quality of food baskets prepared in advance did not differ from that of baskets constituted by food aid recipients themselves in social grocery-stores. The nutritional quality was not better in organizations where volunteers had declared having taken into account dietary balance when designing food baskets. This suggests that dietary recommendations are unknown and / or difficult to put into practice in this context. To improve the nutritional status of the most vulnerable populations in France, access to a balanced diet should be facilitated, in particular by giving charities the means of delivering food aid of good nutritional quality.