Food Consumption in Romania - Quantitative and Qualitative Aspects of Food Security

Abstract

Food security ensurance is determined both by food availability, which depends on agrifood sector and on agricultural trade and by the access to food, which results mainly from the incomes and population purchase power, but also on other factors for example the local market supply, the physical access of persons to food, etc. Starting from these considerents, the paper’s aim is to identify the way in which the internal supply is able to assure the population access to balanced food diet, based on valuable components, respecting the nutritional specialists. Using the methabolical coeficients for macronutrients, it was realised their conversion or equivalence into calories, fact which permitted the assessment of the evolution in time of level and structure of the caloric input. Results obtained show a qualitative modification of the caloric input, by diminution of the level of calories coming from glucides and slight increase of the protein caloric level, mainly the animal origin ones. In the strucuture we can see as a positive aspect, a modification in the caloric share of the glucides, by increase of the input from fruits and vegetables. Structurally at the level of year 2011 the caloric share of nutrient factors is inscribing in the values recommended by nutritionists but there are identified also certain negative tendences which in the future could generate a degradation of  diet’s calorie balance.