The Diversity of Food Consumption in Romania Cecilia ALEXANDRI 1) , Cristian KEVORCHIAN 2) 1) Institute of Agricultural Economics, Bucharest, Romania; cecilia@eadr.ro 2) Institute of Agricultural Economics, Bucharest, Romania; *) Corresponding author, e-mail: cristian.kevorkian@gmail.com BulletinUASVM Horticulture 72(1) / 2015 Print ISSN 1843-5254, Electronic ISSN 1843-5394 DOI:10.15835/buasvmcn-hort:10747 ABSTRACT The relation between the quantities of food consumed from different products and the socio-economic characteristics of households is investigated in many empirical studies. At the same time, there are few concerns with regard to other aspects related to the consumption behaviour, such as the number of individual food items consumed over a certain period, in other words, dietary variety or diversity. Identification of economic and socio- demographic factors influencing food consumption diversity on the Romanian households is the aim of this paper. Among the investigated factors, we had in view the incomes in the first place, then the household residence area, the educational level as well as other demographic factors. Count measure and Berry index are used to measure food diversity. The data used are those from the Household Budget Survey for the year 2011, 1 st quarter. As conclusions, the study reveals a positive correlation between diversity and household incomes. At the same time, food diversity is higher in the case of urban households compared to the rural households. Among the significant demographic factors, it can be mentioned the household head’s educational level and the household members’ age. Keywords: Berry index, food and nutritional security, food diversity, household level. INTRODUCTION The modelling of dependency between socio- economic characteristics of households, such as age, household members’ incomes, household size, composition and household head’s educational level and foodstuffs consumed represents a rich topic in household food security research. Closely linked with the mentioned topic, the modelling of consumption behaviour - such as number and type of foodstuffs consumed in a certain period - reveals important aspects related to dietary variety or diversity. Food consumption diversity is important from several points of view. In the first instance, a mostly diversified diet represents a modality by which people can protect themselves against certain diseases. In this respect, the nutritionists’ opinion is that an optimum diet should be composed of quite a large number of different products (Randall, E., et al, 1985). In order to measure diet’s diversity, the US Department of Agriculture developed the Healthy Eating Index (HEI). This index contains 12 components, among which 9 components measure diet adequacy and 3 components refer to moderation in people’s food consumption (Guenther P.M., et al, 2013). Another index for dietary diversity assessment, used by FAO, is Household Dietary Diversity Score (HDDS), which is calculated by counting the type of consumed foodstuffs selected from 12 main food groups: 1.Cereals, 2. Roots and tubers, 3. Vegetables, 4. Fruit, 5. Meat and offal, 6. Eggs, 7. Fish and seafood, 8. Pulses, beans, nuts, 9. Milk and dairy products, 10. Oils and fats, 11. Sugar and honey, 12. Miscellaneous. (Swindale, A., Bilinski, P., 2006). Knowing how dietary diversity evolves in relation to certain factors is also important for the marketing studies, for adapting the strategies to consumers’ needs. At the same time, increasing the food consumption diversity in certain geographic areas has important implications upon the world and regional agri-food trade and upon ECONOMICS AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT - RESEARCH ARTICLES