CSIRO is helping more Australians access convenient low carb meals.

The national science agency says it has partnered with Australian food manufacturers and retailers to make it easier for time-poor Australians to choose nutritious ready meals consistent with the CSIRO Low Carb Diet and Lifestyle Plan.

Be Fit Food is the first provider to partner with CSIRO to develop and deliver meals that have been specifically designed to comply with the CSIRO Low Carb Diet.

The meals will feature a front of pack labelling mark signalling they are a meal suitable for the CSIRO Low Carb Diet.

Ready meals featuring the mark have been formulated and passed independent tests to ensure strict benchmarks have been met, making them compliant with the food and nutrient specifications of the science-based CSIRO diet.

CSIRO’s Senior Research Scientist Grant Brinkworth said through decades of nutrition and health research, CSIRO understands the barriers that can hold people back from improving their diet quality.

“We know that lifestyle factors like time and budget pressures and the growing rate of single person households are fuelling a strong demand for ready meals,” Professor Brinkworth said.

“In Australia, our diet is getting worse. Of the top 20 causes of death in Australia, 14 are lifestyle related, with Type 2 diabetes one of the fastest growing chronic health conditions contributing to these startling numbers.

“As people are seeking convenient food solutions, it is important to make the healthy solution the easy option.”

The CSIRO Low Carb Diet is an energy-controlled, nutritionally complete meal plan that is lower in carbohydrate and higher in protein and healthy (unsaturated) fats.

When compared to ready meals currently available in the Australian market, the meals displaying the Meal Suitable for the CSIRO Low Carb Diet mark on average contain 68 per cent less carbohydrate and 55 per cent less sodium.

“In a world full of so much nutrition noise, few diets have undergone the type of rigorous clinical testing and research that the CSIRO Low-Carb Diet has,” Professor Brinkworth said.

Clinical studies have shown that the CSIRO Low Carb Diet and Lifestyle Plan effectively delivers sustained long-term weight loss and greater improvements in blood glucose control, and reduction in diabetes medication requirements as well as risk factors for heart disease compared to a traditional high carbohydrate, low fat diet.

The first ready meals compliant with the CSIRO Low Carb Diet are available today.