The agrarian policy pursued in Russia is primarily aimed at ensuring food security, the main components of which are the economic and physical availability of food to the population. However, the indicators approved in the regulatory legal acts on food security monitoring do not contribute to its objective assessment. They can be used to assess the overall state of food security. A more in-depth analysis is needed for a more objective assessment of the economic availability of food to the population of the Russian Federation, which requires, among other things, changes in the methods of calculating food independence, taking into account the share of household disposable resources used to purchase food. It is also necessary to take into account the energy value of food, the quality of food consumed, etc. To do this, it is necessary to significantly expand the information base on the food consumed, including taking into account its quality and energy value. The paper attempts, based on the available analytical data, to assess the economic availability of food for households depending on their income, as well as in the context of socio-demographic groups, to identify the main factors constraining bringing the level of food consumption to rational norms.