Tutti Frutti?

An Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report claimed the British and Irish "Ranked as the world's best at eating fruit and vegetables". The report was entitled 'Health at a Glance 2023' and media went wild. How could a country with an obesity crisis; a taste for ultra-processed food and home to the deep-fried Mars bar, be populated by world-beating fruit and vegetables eaters? Devi Sridhar (University of Edinburgh) highlights the flaws in this overly-simplistic analysis (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/17/british-irish-world-beating-fruit-and-veg-eaters). Firstly, the OECD study 'Health at a Glance 2023' was based on self-reports by the selected participants. People are notorious, when it comes to accurately reporting their food intakes (they forget, misinterpret or even lie). The raw figures for the proportions of the samples claiming they had eaten '5 or more portions of fruit and vegetables each day', has consequently to be taken 'with a pinch of salt'. Secondly, although the report includes 2023 prominently in its title, the data was actually based on numbers obtained 'in 2019 or the nearest year'. As Sridhar points out, this was before Brexit was finalised. The UK imports most of its fruit and vegetables, from 'Europe'. After Brexit finalisation, UK food prices markedly increased. Reports of supermarket shortages of fruit and vegetables also became increasingly common. One might add that UK folk, were 'brainwashed' in campaigns about the virtuousness of 'the 5-a-day'. What constituted a 'helping' was left rather vague. People were also informed they could count fruit juice and baked beans, as well as other dubious items, in their 5-a-day totals. World-beating fruit and vegetable eaters, 'les rosbifs' are not!