Are You Eating Enough Fruit and Vegetables?

Everyone can remember being told that they must eat their fruit and veggies, but new information released by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention says that Americans are not eating the recommended daily portions of fruits and vegetables.

According to a survey carried out in 2005 by the CDC, less than one third of Americans claimed to eat the daily recommends minimum of fruits and vegetables.

In the recent report by the CDC, Heidi Blanck and other CDC researchers wrote "In 2005, approximately 32.6 percent of the U.S. adult population surveyed consumed fruit two or more times per day, and 27.2 percent ate vegetables three or more times per day."

The results of the survey has just been published in 'Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report', a journal that is produced by the CDC.

The survey was carried out as a section of a federal health survey. There is not one state in the U.S where the majority of residents were even close to meeting the recommending daily minimums of fruit and vegetable consumption.

The CDC recommends that adults should be eating at the very least, two servings of fruit and three servings of vegetables each day. More servings are even better and meeting the minimum helps to attain a healthy and balanced diet.

The CDC has been trying for a number of years to stress the importance of eating the recommended fruit and vegetable requirements. By 2010 the CDC would like at least 50 percent of American's consuming the daily recommendations for vegetables and at least 75 percent of American's consuming the daily recommendations for fruit.

However these national goals are looking like they will be tough to achieve. When speaking with the Associated Press, Dr. Larry Cohen of the CDC said, "We're really concerned with the lack of success in meeting these national goals."

The survey carried out by the CDC only looked into the fruit and vegetable consumption of adults. However this trend is likely to carry over into the eating habits of children as well.

The CDC is currently recommends that children over the age of two consume at least 1.6 servings of fruits and 3.2 servings of vegetables each day.