Grow good health in your backyard

We hear all the time how overweight Americans are and that we should all eat less. Fruit and vegetables, however, are the two categories of foods that all health and nutrition experts agree that we should eat more of.

Produce for Better Health Foundation (PBH) recently published its “State of the Plate: America’s Fruit and Vegetable Trends” for 2020.

Beginning in 2004, PBH has been analyzing fruit and vegetable consumption data and publishing the results in a comprehensive report every five years. Statistics can sometimes be confusing or misleading but this report boils the information down to a very user-friendly format.

The history since 2004 has not been very promising. Despite fast food offerings of fresh salads and fruit, and the barrage of public service announcements, fruit and vegetable consumption is down 10% from 2004. That figure is the number of times an individual chooses to eat fruit or vegetable known and is known as “eating occasions”.

The survey also found that only 1 out of 10  Americans eat enough fruits and vegetables. That doesn’t surprise me too much, especially when I’ve known people that boast about not eating their veggies.

When I read these types of studies I always like to see how I compare to the averages, just to see how I’m doing.

The State of the Plate takes into account all forms of fruit and vegetables: fresh, frozen, canned, dried or otherwise processed. It also looks at the food as it is eaten alone as in a side dish or snack, or as an ingredient in a dish.

One revealing statistic is the average adult consumes 1.6 cups of vegetables per day, but  two to four cups are recommended. Just under a cup of fruit per day is eaten compared to the 1.5 to 2.5 cups recommendation. However, about one-fourth of the population does not eat any fruit at all durng the course of a week.

The group aged 1 to 3 years old has the highest number of eating occasions while Millennials rank near the bottom.

The top ranked fruit is bananas followed by apples. I once heard someone describe bananas as the closest thing you can get to a fruit without being a fruit when they were trying to get a non-fruit eating child to eat fruit -- the kid didn’t buy it.

Not only are bananas the top fruit but they are also gaining in popularity the most, followed by grapes.

On the other hand, some categories are declining;  raisins are the fastest declining fruit as well as mixed fruit.

The No. 1 vegetable was green salad with french fries in second place. Yes, french fries count, at least in this survey. 

Curiously, only 15% of the population eats one-third of the vegetables; 9% eats one-third of the fruit.

Numerous studies have been done that look at the fruit and vegetable eating habits of gardeners and they all come to the same conclusion. Think of how many servings a typical gardener and their family eats during the summer. Add to that the amount of frozen, canned and dried produce that gets put away for winter and you see a significant increase in consumption. The effect seems to last after the growing season. This is especially true with children.

This year’s iteration of the PBH study was completed before the pandemic began. It’s possible, with so many people preparing meals at home, eating habits have changed during 2020. And why not? Just about everything else has changed.

A significant number of people began gardening last year, that would almost certainly skew the results.

Read the entire State of the Plate at https://fruitsandveggies.org/stateoftheplate2020/ .