The rising cost of living is changing the way Nigerian families eat. As food prices continue to rise and household incomes struggle to keep pace, many families are being forced to make difficult choices about what goes into their meals.
Foods that once featured regularly on household menus, including eggs, milk, meat, fish, beans and fresh vegetables, are increasingly being reduced or eliminated altogether. In their place are cheaper staples that can provide enough calories to keep hunger at bay, even when they offer less nutritional variety.
For many households, economic hardship has therefore gone beyond reducing the quantity of food available. It is also changing the quality, composition and frequency of meals, with potentially serious consequences for nutrition and health.
For Mrs Alele Hamzat, a mother of four, preparing breakfast is no longer a routine household chore. It has become a daily calculation of what the family can afford.
A few years ago, breakfast in her home typically consisted of fried eggs, bread and tea with milk. Today, she said, those foods have largely disappeared from the family menu as rising prices continue to erode household incomes.
“We have forgotten about eggs and milk,” Hamzat said.
“Now, breakfast is plain boiled yam or cassava flakes, garri, soaked in water. We only eat to survive, not to balance any diet.”
Hamzat’s experience reflects a broader change taking place in Nigerian households, where prolonged economic hardship, rising food prices, currency depreciation and the removal of fuel subsidy have forced families to alter not only how much they eat, but also the quality and variety of their diets.
Across the country, foods that traditionally provided households with protein, vitamins and other essential nutrients are increasingly being replaced with cheaper and more filling staples.
Rice, beans, meat, fish, eggs, milk and fresh vegetables have become less accessible to many families, while garri, yam, bread, noodles and other carbohydrate-heavy foods increasingly dominate household menus.
The result is a gradual shift from eating for nutrition to eating primarily to suppress hunger.
Recent data from the National Bureau of Statistics indicate that about 65.8 per cent of Nigerian households are unable to afford healthy, nutritious or preferred foods because of financial constraints. United Nations data also indicate that about 80 per cent of Nigerians cannot afford a healthy diet.
The impact is particularly evident in the changing pattern of meals within households.
For some families, the traditional three-square-meal routine has become difficult to maintain. Breakfast may be skipped, lunch reduced or dinner replaced with whatever inexpensive food is available.
Some households have adopted what residents describe as “0-1-1” or “1-0-1” patterns, where one meal is deliberately skipped during the day to conserve food or money.
Mrs Dorathy Agbede, who runs a food business, said the decline in customers’ purchasing power had become increasingly obvious.
“Before, I could sell a 50kg bag of rice and half a bag of beans in a week,” she said.
“People even bought vegetable soup with assorted beef.
“But today, I hardly sell two mudus of beans or rice in a week. Most times, I give cooked food out to avoid it being wasted.
“Many customers are owing me. Some people who used to eat breakfast and lunch now eat only lunch.”
The reduction in food variety is also affecting the consumption of protein.
For many households, meat and fish have moved from being regular components of meals to occasional additions used mainly to add flavour to soups and stews.
Tunde Adebayo, a civil servant, said his family had drastically reduced its consumption of meat because of rising prices.
“We used to buy two kilos of beef every week,” he said.
“Now, we buy a single fish, break it into tiny pieces and use it just to add aroma to the soup. The children don’t get actual pieces of meat anymore.”
The nutrition cost
Nutritionists warn that these adjustments could have consequences beyond temporary hunger.
Dr Charles Alozie, a clinical nutritionist, said the growing dependence on cheap, energy-dense foods was creating a dangerous nutritional pattern.
“What we are seeing is a dangerous pivot,” he said.
“People cannot afford fresh fish, beef or leafy vegetables. They buy heavy starches to stay full.
“They are filling their stomachs with empty calories, high sodium and unhealthy fats, which could create serious health problems in the future.”
Experts say the problem is particularly concerning because a household may consume enough food to feel full while still failing to obtain adequate protein, vitamins, minerals and other nutrients required for healthy growth and development.
This creates what health professionals describe as a double burden of malnutrition. While inadequate food intake can lead to undernutrition, diets dominated by cheap, highly processed and nutrient-poor foods can also increase the risk of obesity and diet-related diseases.
Hypertension, type-2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases are among the health conditions associated with unhealthy diets.
Children and pregnant women are particularly vulnerable because their nutritional requirements are higher. Inadequate nutrient intake during pregnancy and early childhood can affect physical growth, cognitive development and long-term health.
Data tracked by the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition also highlight the risks associated with inadequate nutrition during early childhood, particularly where children do not receive sufficient quantities of essential nutrients.
For households already struggling to meet daily expenses, however, nutritional considerations are often secondary to affordability.
The rising cost of food means parents increasingly have to decide which foods can be removed from the shopping list, which meals can be skipped and how far a small quantity of meat, fish or vegetables can be stretched.
From balanced meals to survival meals
The change is particularly visible in the composition of everyday meals.
Foods such as beans, eggs, fish, meat, vegetables and dairy products provide important nutrients, but their rising prices have made them increasingly difficult for low-income families and sections of the middle class to maintain as regular parts of their diets.
Instead, households are relying more heavily on cheaper staples that provide calories and satiety but may not provide sufficient nutritional diversity when consumed repeatedly without complementary foods.
Instant noodles and other highly processed foods have also become popular because they are relatively easy to prepare and can feed several people when combined with inexpensive ingredients.
For families under financial pressure, such choices are often less about preference than necessity.
The crisis has therefore changed the meaning of a “good meal” for many households. A meal that was once judged by its nutritional balance is increasingly judged by whether it can feed everyone at the table.
Beyond the household
Nutrition experts say addressing the problem requires more than encouraging families to eat healthier.
The affordability of healthy food is closely linked to agricultural production, transportation, storage, insecurity and the broader cost of living.
Experts have called for measures to reduce the cost of agricultural inputs, improve transportation and food storage infrastructure, protect farmlands and strengthen food production.
Without improvements across the food supply chain and a reduction in food prices, households will continue to make difficult choices between nutritional quality and affordability.
For millions of Nigerians, the daily question is no longer simply what to eat. It is how to make limited income buy enough food to keep the family going.
And as household budgets shrink, so too are the variety, quality and nutritional value of the meals on Nigerian plates.