What is the food group with the broadest range of health benefits but which consumers seem to have the greatest difficulty in incorporating regularly into their diets?
Vegetables. Even consumers who are managing to achieve their five-a-day on a regular basis are frequently doing so by placing greater emphasis on fruits than vegetables. Moreover, although the government has not made any distinction between the two in terms of portions to be consumed per day, it is in fact vegetables that appear to offer greater protection against disease, particularly when it comes to cancer.
There is an argument that vegetables should, therefore, feature to a greater extent than fruit in our diets and the five daily portions should perhaps comprise a minimum of three vegetables.
The incorporation of vegetables into their daily diet is thus a significant area and one with which consumers require assistance. And, though the spotlight is increasingly falling on ingredients with specific health claims, the general well-being trend is perhaps the dominant one.
Vegetables should, therefore, be a key ingredient for manufacturers to incorporate in healthy foods. The manufacturer who finds an easy way to incorporate one, or even two, portions of vegetables into a food in a tasty convenient format will be on to a winner, especially when it comes to snacks. Knorr's Vie fruit shots are a particularly good example of innovation in this field and we are likely to see an increasing number of launches of cereal bars incorporating vegetables as well as fruit.
Nevertheless, caution is required to ensure that vegetables retain sufficient quantities of their active ingredients when incorporated into processed foods. Root vegetable crisps, for example, may sound like a healthier option than potato crisps. But, in fact, they may differ little from their unhealthy cousins in terms of micronutrient content and their antioxidant effect after processing.
And, of course, some functional ingredients are derived from vegetables, for example prebiotics from chicory or lycopene from tomatoes. However, while such ingredients, in isolation, do indeed appear to offer health benefits, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and eating vegetables in their natural form remains the most effective way of maintaining health and well-being.
Stephanie French is a freelance nutrition strategy consultant, http://www.nutritiondirections.co.uk