Fruit & Veggie Report Card Part 4

Fruit & Veggie Report Card Part 4. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. We have been looking at a new report from the National Fruit & Vegetable Alliance called the 2010 National Action Plan Report Card for Fruits and Vegetables. Elizabeth Pivonka, President and CEO of the Produce for Better Health Foundation who was part of that survey says they graded like old school from an "A" down to an "F". PIVONKA: We gave adult fruit and vegetable consumption an "F" because consumption has been pretty much flat for the past 5 years. We gave teen fruit and vegetable consumption and "F" because their consumption of fruits and vegetables has declined over the past 5 years which is unfortunate. She says advertising is another area that received poor marks. PIVONKA: We also gave an "F" to the advertising of healthy foods. As I mentioned earlier we had a reduction in advertising of unhealthy foods but we have not had an increase of advertising of healthy foods and there's another report due out next summer that will be interesting as a comparison to some of the numbers we had in our report card. Pivonka wraps up the study with the final "F". PIVONKA: Finally we gave an "F" to the actual cost of inadequate fruit and vegetable consumption. Basically we released a separate study that shows that the lack of fruit and vegetable consumption is costing us about $56-billion dollars a year specific to healthcare costs specific to cancer, heart disease and stroke. Bottom line...eat more fruits and vegetables. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.