An Investigation into Food Consumption Patterns and Related Poverty in District Mardan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.

The main theme behind this research work is to describe the food consumption patterns of households and estimate the related poverty line based on daily calories intake in district Mardan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa-Pakistan. The average total household size is 5.75 that consist of 1.89 children (32.95%), 3.72 adults (64.69%) and 0.125 (2.17%) aged person (≥60 years). Based on calorie requirement at various stages of age of a person, an adult equivalent has been calculated as 5.271of actual household size 5.75. The results reveal that on average an adult equivalent consumed 243.48 gm flour, 142.86 gm meat, 249.19 gm vegetables, 74.04 gm of rice, 81.99 gm of pulses, 42.24 gm fats, 77.02 ml milk, 54.66 gm of sugar, 29.81 gm tea and 149.07 gm total fruits daily. In the study area an adult takes 2647.66 calories from the daily food consumption representing a positive figure which is more than the recommended calories of 2350. The estimated poverty line (1.13) based on daily food consumption patterns shows that the people in the study area, on the average, are above the poverty line. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]