The fruit and vegetable sector is to receive a £1.5 million PR boost from the national lottery.
Cash from the Lottery's New Opportunities Fund (NOF), will fund 10 local initiatives across England to encourage people to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day.
One of the projects in line for funding will educate low-income families to cook meals using fruit and vegetables in a bid to reduce three of the UK's biggest killers ñ heart disease, cancer and stroke.
Research shows that English children eat an average of two to three portions each day, while adults tend to eat fewer than three. The unemployed and those on low incomes eat just half the amount of greens consumed by people in the highest income brackets.
As well as the targeted cookery classes, the new scheme will introduce grow-your-own initiatives and encourage the development of farmers' markets.
Baroness Jill Pitkeathley, chairwoman of the NOF, said: "Evidence suggests that increasing fruit and vegetable consumption significantly reduces the risk of cancer and it helps protect against heart disease."
The new initiatives will each receive about £150,000 and operate in the Amber Valley in the East Midlands, north and east Lincolnshire, Brent and Camden in London, Northumberland, Hampshire, north Devon, Torbay, Wolverhampton and Doncaster.
The fruit and vegetable initiative is one of 65 similar healthy eating schemes to benefit from lottery cash under a new £10m 5-a-Day Community Initiative, the baroness said.
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