The average pensioner aged over 65 living alone buys almost 4,000 calories worth of food every day, according to official data.

That is starkly different to the calorific intake of a family with two children aged 15 or under, where an individual’s daily average food purchases drop to roughly 1,800 calories’ worth.

Nutritionists generally recommend a daily intake of 2,500 calories for a man and 2,000 for a woman, though this depends on various factors, including age and activity levels.

To mark World Food Day, the National Statistics Office did an exercise to analyse intake by calories. Rather than measure food purchases by how much households spent, it focused on the type of food bought and how many calories they contained.

The figures do not, however, indicate how much of the food was actually consumed.

The figures do not indicate how much of the food is actually consumed

The food items purchased vary greatly between the two categories: a pensioner purchases 1,037 calories worth of bread and cereals a day, compared to just 500 for a family. And even relatively more expensive food groups like meat feature highly for the sole pensioner, who buys 702 calories-worth of meat, compared to 350 for the family with two children.

Those who say children consume more sugar, soft drinks and confectionery should think again.

A pensioner buys 698 calories a day within this category while a family of four would only purchase 368 calories’ worth.

The NSO also analysed the food patterns by the income level of the person but the differences were not as marked as one would expect. While a person in a household earning less than €9,000 a year bought food totalling 2,552 calories a day, a member of a household earning €25,000 or more would buy 2,422.

However, the lower income person would get relatively more calories from bread and butter: 734 calories as opposed to 638 for the higher income one.

Another marked difference was alcohol consumption, with the higher income household buying almost twice as much as the lower.

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