Adherence to the EAT-Lancet index is associated with lower diet costs in the Mexican population

Poor diet quality contributes to morbidity and mortality and affects environmental sustainability. The EAT-Lancet reference diet offers a healthy and sustainable solution. This study aimed to estimate the association between diet cost and dietary quality, measured with an EAT-Lancet Index. An EAT-Lancet index was adapted to assess adherence to this dietary pattern from 24-h recalls data from the 2012 and 2016 Mexican National Health and Nutrition Surveys (n = 14,242). Prices were obtained from the Consumer Price Index. We dichotomized cost at the median (into low- and high-cost) and compared the EAT-Lancet index scores. We also used multivariate linear regression models to explore the association between diet cost and diet quality. Individuals consuming a low-cost diet had a higher EAT-Lancet score than those consuming a high-cost diet (20.3 vs. 19.4 from a possible scale of 0 to 42; p