A recent survey by the Department of Health found that one in three English parents think that their children know more about healthy eating campaigns than they do – for example, over a third of the parents thought that a baked potato counted as one of the ‘five a day’. School campaigns and cooking classes are clearly improving children’s knowledge, and they can then teach their parents…or mislead them, as half of those surveyed tricked their parents into thinking they had consumed a full portion after eating only a tiny amount of things they did not like!
Only a little over half of the population in England eat the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, and rising food prices are now being blamed by many parents surveyed for putting that recommendation out of reach – eight out of ten parents under 34 said that they struggled with the cost of buying fresh fruit and vegetables. They would be helped by knowing that vegetables in cooked food counted towards the total, as do dried fruits and canned and frozen varieties (many of those interviewed for the survey did not know this).
Source: BBC News Online and Daily Telegraph, 24 June 2008