NEW YORK – The U.S. government has recently bumped up its recommendations for fruit and vegetable consumption, and a recent study suggests it’s extremely likely Americans aren’t keeping up.
The United States Department of Agriculture had long suggested that everybody to get at least five servings of fruits and veggies daily, but adjusted that requirement to 2 to 6-1/2 cups of fruits and vegetables daily in its new MyPyramid food guide, Dr. Patricia Guenther of the USDA’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion and colleagues note.
The guidelines state recommended eating by age and sex, and spell out the variety of vegetables people should eat.
To investigate how many people were meeting the new standards — and the old ones — Guenther and her team looked at single-day food eating data for 8,070 people participating in the 1999-2000 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.