Food as medicine: why do we need to eat so many vegetables and what does a serve actually look like?
- Written by Genevieve James-Martin, Research Dietitian, CSIRO
This is the first article in a three-part package “food as medicine”, exploring how food prevents and cures disease.
Most Australian adults would know they’re meant to eat two or more serves of fruit and five or more serves of vegetables every day. Whether or not they get there is another question.
A recent national survey reported 45% of Australian women and 56% of Australian men didn’t eat enough fruit. And 90% of women and 96% of men didn’t eat enough vegetables. This figure is worse than for the preceding ten years.
Men had on average 1.6 serves of fruit and 2.3 serves of vegetables per day, and women had 1.8 serves of fruit and 2.5 serves of vegetables. A serve of fresh fruit is a medium piece (about 150 grams) and a serve of vegetables is half a cup of cooked vegetables or about a cup of salad.
Authors: Genevieve James-Martin, Research Dietitian, CSIRO