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Swiss ranked second in Oxfam's global food table

Malcolm Curtis
Malcolm Curtis - [email protected]
Swiss ranked second in Oxfam's global food table
Cheese fondue, a staple dish in the Swiss diet. Photo: Lagruyere.ch

The Swiss are justly proud of their cuisine but when it comes to having a plentiful, nutritious, healthy and affordable diet they fall behind the Dutch, according to a new report.

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If you thought Dutch food was bland, think again — it apparently has world-beating attributes.

The Netherlands is surprisingly ranked number one in the world for the availability of good food, just ahead of Switzerland and France, says Oxfam, the international development organization, in a report issued on Thursday.

The group’s “Good Enough to Eat” index compares 125 countries where full data is available to create a snapshot of the challenges people face in getting food.

It’s a close call but the Netherlands beats its cheese-making competitor Switzerland on affordability of food and on health, the Oxfam data shows.

Chad is ranked at the bottom of the global food table, which measures such things as levels of undernourishment and underweight children, food prices and rates of diabetes and obesity.

Chad is just behind Ethiopia and Angola on the list featuring African countries in all but four of the bottom 30 places.

The index also looks at the diversity of food and access to safe water in the various countries.

The group underlines that despite there being enough food in the world to feed everyone, one in eight people go to bed hungry every night.

“Overconsumption, misuse of resources and waste are common elements of a system that leaves hundreds of millions without enough to eat,” Oxfam says.

European countries account for all but one of the top 20 countries in the index, with Australia ranked eighth, tied with Luxembourg.

The US, Japan, New Zealand, Brazil and Canada all fall outside the top 20, with the US, ranked 21st, among the nations scoring most poorly for its high rates of obesity and diabetes.

For more on the Oxfam report, click here.

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