Average global consumption of fruits and vegetables rises slightly in half a century

14/04/2015

Obesity levels continue to rise throughout much of the world, while the average per capita consumption of fruits and vegetables globally increased from 36% to 40% over the past half century.

The figures correspond to the interactive section of the National Geographic website called 'What the World Eats, which sourced data from the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization Statistics Division (FAOSTAT)'.

According to the information, China leads the world per capita consumption of fruits and vegetables with the category consisting of fruits, vegetables and tubers, which represented the 56% of the average Chinese diet by weight in 2011. Much of that figure consists of vegetables.

By contrast, in the 2011 year, fruit and vegetables reached an 27% of the average diet in the US, 33% in the United Kingdom, 25% in Mexico, and only the 12% in Somalia.

Another interesting finding is that Cuba is a world leader in fruit consumption, whose segment makes up the 19% of the average diet. National Geographic attributed this high figure to the fall of Cuba's key trading partner, the Soviet Union, in 1991, which left the island country dependent on local agriculture. Now, fruits and vegetables represent almost half of the average Cuban diet, unlike the 18% in 1970.

The United Kingdom also has a relatively high per capita fruit consumption among the most developed countries on the list, reaching 13%, compared to Germany that registers an 8%.

Fruit consumption is also remarkably high in Brazil (17%), Mexico (15%) and Saudi Arabia (15%), while the category constitutes one tenth of the average diets in Australia, USA, Hong Kong , Spain, Japan, Kuwait and Argentina.

Some interesting discoveries are also found when comparing the data on the consumption of fruits and vegetables in the last 50 years.

On the one hand, the proportion of fruits and vegetables in the average Spanish diet has been reduced by about 15 percentage points, up to 30%. In Japan it has also been reduced by almost the same amount.

In addition, the USA it has remained fairly constant over the five decades, with fruits, vegetables and tubers rising slightly from 26% to 27% of the average diet.

Australia has seen an encouraging boost from 21% to 26%, while India went from 23% a half century ago to 34%.

In terms of the world average, fruit consumption has increased to represent 11% in 2011 diets, while vegetables have increased to 20%.

The graph also analyzed meat consumption, which showed that while Argentina consumes most of the meat for the time being, Hong Kong has a significantly higher total consumption level than anywhere else.

Source: Fruit Portal