Diet Quality of Community Cafe Meals Among Guests With Food Insecurity

Objective: Compare the diet quality of a meal consumed at a community cafe (cafe meals), a pay-what- you-can restaurant, to a meal consumed for an equivalent eating occasion on the day before (comparison meal) by guests with food insecurity. Methods: Dietary recalls were collected from cafe guests with food insecurity to determine the Healthy Eating Index-2020 (HEI-2020) total and component scores. Healthy Eating Index-2020 scores were compared between meals using paired-sample t tests and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests. Results: Most participants (n = 40; 80% male; 42.5% Black) had very low food security (70.0%). Cafe meal had a higher HEI-2020 total score (46.7 +/- 10.5 vs 34.4 +/- 11.6; P < 0.001) and total vegetables (2.6 +/- 2.0 vs 1.2 +/- 1.7; P = 0.004), total fruits (2.1 +/- 2.2 vs 0.6 +/- 1.5; P < 0.001), whole fruits (1.6 +/- 2.0 vs 0.3 +/- 0.9; P < 0.001), and refined grains (7.8 +/- 3.5 vs 3.9 +/- 3.9; P < 0.001) scores than comparison meals. Conclusions and Implications: The cafe meal had better diet quality than the comparison meal, suggesting its potential for improving diet quality among guests with food insecurity.