Lisbon, Oct. 16, 2025 (Lusa) - The Portuguese population has a daily average of 4,079 calories (Kcal) available for consumption, twice the recommended amount, Statistics Portugal (INE) said on Thursday when releasing data from the Portuguese Food Balance (BAP).
The INE data indicates that the calories available for consumption are twice the recommended amount for an adult with a healthy average weight, and the figure remains practically identical to that observed in the 2015-2019 period, which was 4,077 Kcal.
"It is important, however, to emphasise the 3,894 kcal of availability recorded in 2020 (the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic), which was the lowest result in the last ten years," INE pointed out.
In its analysis of the BAP data, INE emphasised that food availability for consumption in the 2020-2024 period continues to show an "excessive and unbalanced" food supply.
Last year, the food product groups with the biggest deviations from the recommended consumption under the Food Wheel were, by excess, meat, fish and eggs (+12.4 percentage points (compared to +12.0 p.p. in 2020, and by default vegetables" (-8.1 p.p., compared to -8.2 p.p. in 2020) and "fruit" (-3.7 p.p., compared to -4.3 p.p. in 2020).
In terms of average food availability, from 2020-2024 to 2015-2019, there was a 2.9% increase in meat (234.4 grams per inhabitant/day).
Poultry meat continued to represent the largest share of food availability, accounting for 39.9% of the total, followed by pork (27.4%), with an average decrease of 2.5 percentage points.
Beef ranked third, up 1.5 percentage points.
The supply of fish for consumption fell by 2.1% and did not exceed 60.4 grams per inhabitant per day.
'Apparent consumption of crustaceans and molluscs grew by 20.6%, maintaining its position as the second product in this group (28.6% of the total), after fresh, chilled, frozen or tinned fish (55.1%), and relegating cod and other dried salted fish (16.3%) to third place', according to INE's analysis.
Egg consumption increased by 11.9%, with an average annual growth rate of around 3% over the five years in question.
On average, each resident in Portugal had around half an egg available for consumption every day during the period in question (183 eggs/year).
The daily per capita availability of milk and milk products fell by 3.6% to 312.7 grams/inhabitant/day, with the availability of milk for public consumption — the main product in this group (56.7% of the total) — falling by 10.6%.
Cereal food availability fell slightly (-1.2%) to 342.4 grams/inhabitant/day over the five years under review. 'Portugal only covered 23.0% of cereal consumption needs in 2020-2024', compared to 24.7% in 2015-2019.
On the other hand, the daily quantities of fruit available per inhabitant increased by 13.9%, registering an average annual growth of 1.8%.
Concerning alcoholic drinks, the daily quantities available per capita were 332.2 millilitres per day (121 litres/inhabitant/year), "reflecting an increase of 10.0% compared to 2015-2019".
Each national resident had 52.1 litres of wine and 60.6 litres of beer available for consumption per year.
AH/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
