Spanish fruit and vegetable consumption is 40 per cent less than the recommended daily amount according to a newly released government report.
‘Fruits and Vegetables: Nutrition and health in 21st Century Spain’ reveals the worrying downward trend in consumption in recent years.
The study reveals that since 2013, vegetable intake has fallen by 13 per cent while fruit intake is down 6 per cent drop. Per capita consumption currently stands at 269g per day.
Presenting the report this week, Fernando Burgaz, general director of the food industry, highlighted the fall in consumption of traditional items such as apples (-25 per cent) and pears (-23 per cent).
At the same time, people are eating more kiwifruit, pineapples, watermelons and bananas, a trend that in Burgaz’s opinion “has a lot to do with the ease of consuming these foods”.
The report said that one of the reasons for the decline could be that many traditional products are considered boring and cumbersome to consume.
It suggests that strategies to promote consumption should focus on the growing concern for healthy eating, an interest in innovative products such as berries and the increase in vegetarianism, with an estimated 7.8 per cent of the population declaring themselves non meat eaters.
The report also drew attention to the issue of food waste, revealing that 8 per cent of fruit and 6 per cent of vegetable purchases ended up being thrown away.
The government has launched a number of initiatives to encourage fruit and vegetable consumption, many of them focused on children. These include the School Fruit Promotion Programme which benefits 1.5m schoolchildren.
On average, Spaniards consume 287g of fruit per day. Oranges are the most widely consumed item (56g), followed by bananas and apples (31g) and watermelon (24). Further down the list come mandarins (18g), pears (15g), peaches (10g), kiwifruit (8g) and lemons (7g).
In vegetables, tomatoes were the most widely consumed (38g), followed by onions (20g), peppers (13g) and leafy vegetables (12g).
