Evaluating Diet Quality in Community Café Meals for Individuals Facing Food Insecurity

In recent years, the prevalence of food insecurity has notably increased, prompting a need for innovative programs like community cafés that use a pay-what-you-can system. New research opens in new tab/window in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior opens in new tab/window, published by Elsevier, reviews how the quality of meals eaten at these pay-what-you-can restaurants compares to meals eaten elsewhere.

Lead author Alexandra L. MacMillan Uribe, PhD, RDN, Texas A&M Institute for Advancing Health Through Agriculture, explained, "Community cafés are nonprofit restaurants that welcome anyone in the community to pay what they can afford for a restaurant-quality meal without verification of need. The increasingly popular café model presents a promising solution to improve diet quality through the availability of healthy meal options.”

While guests of any income or food security status can dine at community cafes, this research focused on guests with food insecurity. The community café where the research was conducted is a sit-down restaurant located in the Southern US with seasonal menus focusing on local fare for breakfast and lunch and prioritizes “produce-forward” meals without disclosing prices. To recruit participants, wait staff provided information about the study to interested guests, who were then screened for food insecurity to ascertain eligibility. The guests reported what they had just consumed at the community café and what they had consumed for the equivalent meal the day before when they had not eaten at the café.

The study revealed that meals from the community café had significantly higher diet quality than meals not eaten at the café, as measured by the Healthy Eating Index (HEI), a measure of how closely a diet aligns with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. This difference was particularly pronounced for individuals with very low food security, where café meals showed a robust improvement in overall diet quality compared to the comparison meals. Despite these improvements, both café and comparison meals had relatively low HEI scores, highlighting ongoing challenges in achieving optimal diet quality, especially for those experiencing food insecurity. The findings underscore the potential benefits of offering nutritious options and empowering guests to make their own food choices, addressing critical aspects of food access and dietary quality for vulnerable populations.

The researchers propose that future studies could assess changes in diet quality among new café patrons over time or how posting nutrition information or nutrition counseling could help patrons make healthier meal choices. Understanding how community cafés can enhance diet quality, as highlighted by this study, offers promising avenues to improve overall health and reduce diet-related disease risks among individuals experiencing food insecurity.

Dr. MacMillan Uribe noted, “These investigations are crucial for developing effective strategies to promote healthier eating habits in vulnerable populations through community-based food programs like community cafés.”

In reference to the five dimensions of food access (availability, accessibility, affordability, acceptability, and accommodation), critical components to ensuring the stable availability of nourishing, affordable, and suitable foods, Dr. MacMillan Uribe commented, “It can be reasoned that the café increases availability by offering nutritious food options on their menu, affordability through the pay-what-you-can-system, and acceptability by preparing highly palatable, nutritious foods that respond to their guests’ taste preferences and dietary needs.”

Notes for editors

The article is “Diet Quality of Community Café Meals Among Guests With Food Insecurity,” by Alexandra L. MacMillan Uribe, PhD, RDN; Jacob Szeszulski, PhD; Lori Borchers, PhD; Heather A. Eicher-Miller, PhD; Rebecca A. Seguin-Fowler, PhD, RDN, LD, CSCS; and Erika Largacha Cevallos, MS (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneb.2024.04.009 opens in new tab/window). It appears in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, Volume 56, Issue 8 (August 2024), published by Elsevier.

The article is openly available for 90 days at https://www.jneb.org/article/S1499-4046(24)00098-8/fulltext opens in new tab/window.

The authors would like to thank the funding provided by a Small Research Project grant as part of the National Institutes of Health National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute-funded Summer Institute Program to Increase Diversity Among Individuals Engaged in Health-Related Research (PRIDE), Cardiovascular Disease Group, State University of New York-Downstate. They would also like to thank Julie Williams and Jeff Williams for their support and contributions to the study’s feasibility and participant recruitment.

Full text of the article is also available to credentialed journalists upon request; contact Eileen Leahy at +1 732 406 1313 or [email protected] opens in new tab/window to obtain a copy or additional information. To schedule an interview with the author(s), please contact Alexandra L. MacMillan Uribe, PhD, RDN, Texas A&M Institute for Advancing Health Through Agriculture, at [email protected] opens in new tab/window.

An audio podcast featuring an interview with Alexandra L. MacMillan Uribe, PhD, RDN, and other information for journalists are available at www.jneb.org/content/media. Excerpts from the podcast may be reproduced by the media with permission from Eileen Leahy.

About the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior (JNEB)

The Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior (JNEB), the official journal of the Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior (SNEB), is a refereed, scientific periodical that serves as a resource for all professionals with an interest in nutrition education and dietary/physical activity behaviors. The purpose of JNEB is to document and disseminate original research, emerging issues, and practices relevant to nutrition education and behavior worldwide and to promote healthy, sustainable food choices. It supports the Society's efforts to disseminate innovative nutrition education strategies, and communicate information on food, nutrition, and health issues to students, professionals, policymakers, targeted audiences, and the public.

The Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior features articles that provide new insights and useful findings related to nutrition education research, practice, and policy. The content areas of JNEB reflect the diverse interests of health, nutrition, education, Cooperative Extension, and other professionals working in areas related to nutrition education and behavior. As the Society's official journal, JNEB also includes occasional policy statements, issue perspectives, and member communications. www.jneb.org opens in new tab/window

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