Large-Scale Food Drives Result in Mostly Unhealthy Donations

Understand the need for promoting healthy food donations and spearheading comprehensive community-based nutrition education initiatives. Food pantries have an increasing responsibility to relieve hunger in the short- and long-term, and therefore, a greater influence on health. Ensuring the nutritional quality of donated food is an important consideration. Since many pantries rely on food drives to stock shelves, it was important to evaluate the healthfulness of foods donated. A cross-sectional, photo-based descriptive research design was used to evaluate the healthfulness of foods donated through large-scale food drives in rural Midwest. Using the SWAP stoplight nutrition ranking system, donated foods were categorized into 11 food groups and nutrients of concern were evaluated. Means of sodium, saturated fat, and sugar were calculated and compared with SWAP nutrient limits to assess healthfulness. ANOVA was used to evaluate significant differences between food drives. Food items (n = 4,829) from 3 football games and 6 Boy Scout food drives were evaluated. Donations of dairy (0.4%), fruits (4.4%), cereal (1.3%) whole grains (6.3%), and protein foods (16.1%) were underprovided. Most donations were vegetables (29.4%) or combination foods (37%); the majority of which exceeded recommended sodium limits. Only 14.1% of total donations were categorized as healthy or “green” foods (choose often). Most donations were high in sodium, sugar, or saturated fat and as a whole did not provide a balanced variety of foods. The association between food insecurity, poor diet quality, and poor health outcomes may be mediated by unhealthy food options available at food pantries. Promoting healthy food donations and providing comprehensive nutrition education is warranted.