Pasta named world's favourite food

The results of the independent poll across 17 countries reveal that although national dishes are still popular - such as paella in Spain, schnitzel in Germany and biryani in India - pizza and pasta are now the favourite foods of many, with more than half of the countries (nine out of 17) listing one or both in their top three foods. The research was carried out for Oxfam's new Grow campaign, which is calling on governments and big businesses to fix the global food system to ensure that everyone has enough to eat. In the UK, popular curry dishes only made it to number four as Brits named steak their favourite food, followed by pasta and chicken. The USA opted for pizza while Australians were the only country with a sweet tooth, choosing chocolate as their favourite food (which ranked 15th globally). Despite the popularity of a Western diet, fast food wasn't the first choice for many people worldwide, with KFC only making it into 107th place just ahead of McDonald's at 113. The top ten in full: 1. Pasta 2. Meat 3. Rice 4. Pizza 5. Chicken 6. Fish and seafood 7. Vegetables 8. Chinese 9. Italian 10. Mexican Phil Bloomer, Oxfam's campaigns director, said: "The world's attitudes to food are shifting, in the face of rising prices. More and more of us, from the UK to the least developed countries, are changing the way we eat and it's vital that we change the way we think about our food too. "The global system which is supposed to feed us all is broken, leaving one in seven people to go hungry every day and many more worried by rising prices. From pizza or pasta to Kenyan ugali, food is one of our greatest pleasures and one of our most basic human rights. We need to do something quickly to fix things and make sure that everyone has enough to eat, always." Conducted by international research consultancy GlobeScan, the survey of over 16,000 people was carried out in Australia, Brazil, Germany, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Kenya, Mexico, Netherlands, Pakistan, Philippines, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Tanzania, the UK and the USA.