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Meanwhile, many dietary habits derived from ethnic minority groups are being adopted by the inhabitants of the ‘host country’. As the popularity of ethnic foods increases they become more commercially available in supermarkets or restaurants and are often modified to suit the tastes of the host country and adapted to use local ingredients, For example, in the UK over the last 30 years curry (an example of a modified ethnic food) has become increasingly popular. Sales of ethnic Indian foods in the UK reached €1109 million (£792 million) by end of 2003.
Distinctive food habits are often present among ethnic groups. As the numbers of people from different cultural backgrounds increase in countries within Europe, it becomes more important to identify distinctive dietary habits so that those seeking to give dietary advice can provide relevant and appropriate advice.
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Definitions
Ethnic food: food from countries other than the home market contributing to a different food culture than the traditional cuisine of the host country. The food may be adapted by combining local and imported ingredients and is prepared at home.
Modified ethnic food: a commercially-available version of a food that has been modified to suit the taste and preference of the host country. Food may be adapted by combining local and imported ingredients. |
Ethnicity and the EU
Europe is home to people from many other parts of the world including Asia, Africa and America. For example:
- In France in 1999, there were about 13½ million people of foreign origin (either immigrants, first generation born in France with at least one immigrant parent, or second generation born in France with at least one immigrant grandparent). This included three million people from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia; 700,000 from Sub-Sahara Africa, and an estimated 450,000 people from China (Tribalat, 2004)
- The 2001 census for England and Wales showed a minority ethnic population of 7.9% (4.6 million), representing a 53% increase over the decade. Over 50% were Asian or Asian British, (23% Indian and 16% Pakistani), 25% were Black or Black British and about 5% were Chinese.
- In 2004, 44% of Spain’s three million immigrants were from Latin America, 18% were from Africa and 4.5% were from Asia. Almost 20% of immigrants were from other European Union countries (Instituto Nacional de Estadistica, 2004)
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Examples of ethnic foods
- Rice is the mainstay of the Bangladeshi diet. It is often served with fish, chicken or meat curry and dhal (a dish made from lentils)
- Rice is also important in the cuisine of Canton (Southern China). Stir fried dishes, using little oil or spicy seasoning and including meat and/or seafood, and fresh vegetables, are also common.
- Typical Moroccan foods include rice, couscous, lamb, chicken and soup
- A typical Pakistani meal may consist of chapatti (a type of flat bread), curry, salad and yoghurt
- A Ghanaian meal is likely to consist of a thick stew or soup, served with a starchy food (e.g. yam, rice, plantain, maize or cassava)
Adapted from Hamid & Sarwar (2004) and Thomas (2001) |
Health inequalities
Diet can affect health in a number of different ways. It is known that a diet rich in plant foods like fruits and vegetables may help protect against heart disease and some forms of cancers. Conversely, diets providing a lot of saturated fat are associated with an increased risk of these diseases.
Ethnic minority populations typically have poorer health prospects than the indigenous population. Levels of obesity are rising amongst several ethnic minority groups and this has highlighted a genetic susceptibility to a number of chronic diseases, including heart disease, diabetes and stroke, to varying extents in different sub-groups.
For example, The Health Survey for England found that South Asian men were more at risk of angina and heart attack than others, with Black Caribbean and Indian men having a greater risk of stroke. The survey also found that all minority ethnic groups apart from the Irish and Chinese were likely to suffer a higher rate of diabetes (Erens et al 2001).
Information about current intakes of foods and nutrients of people from ethnic minority groups can be used to develop appropriate strategies to improve diet, and therefore health (see case study).
Case Study
Fat is an important part of Indian cooking and consequently total dietary fat intake may be high. Spices and onions are usually fried in fat before the main ingredients are added (e.g. for curries and dhals). Fried snacks such as samosa and bhajia are also commonly eaten. A type of clarified butter called ghee is traditionally used but is now often replaced with polyunsaturated vegetable oil.
Suggested ways to decrease fat intake include:
- using as little as oil or ghee as possible
when cooking and measure the amount used
- not adding fat to chapatti dough
- not adding oil or ghee to the surface of chapatti
- keeping pilau rice or biryani, which are high fat dishes, for special occasions
- making chutneys without added oil
(Thomas, 2001)
Ethnic foods and EuroFIR
The European Food Information Resources Network project, EuroFIR, is a partnership between universities, research institutes and small-to-medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and is funded by the European Commission through its Framework Programme Six. EuroFIR aims to develop and integrate a comprehensive, coherent and validated databank providing a single, authoritative source of food composition data for Europe.
As part of the EuroFIR project, literature is being reviewed to identify the size and significance of ethnic minority groups in seven countries (the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Denmark, Spain and Israel). Information is also being gathered on commonly consumed ethnic foods and their composition. New and reliable food composition data for ethnic foods consumed by ethnic and mainstream populations is also being produced.
This work (workpackage 2.3.2) is being led by Dr Santosh Khokhar from the University of Leeds, UK. The group will also be looking at modified ethnic foods and generating new and reliable data for some of these foods.
References
Erens B, Primatesta P, Prior G (ed) (2001) The Health of Minority Ethnic Groups 1999. TSO, London
Hamid F & Sarwar T (2004) Global Nutrition A Multicultural Pack. Brent NHS Teaching Primary Trust, London.
Instituto Nacional de Estadistica (2004). Explotacion estadistica del Padrón municipal 2004. Población extranjera por sexo, comunidades y provincias y nacionalidad.
Thomas B (2001) Manual of Dietetic Practice. Blackwell Science, Oxford.
Tribalat, M (2004) Intégration des populations d’origine étrangère (exposé), Groupe X-Démographie-Economie-Populatuion. http://x-dep.polytechnique.org/tribalat04.html
Links to websites of interest
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