We all know that fruit and vegetables are healthy, but did you know that eating vegetables is more effective than eating fruit in reducing mortality?

A recent study published on Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health¹ reports the association of fruit and vegetable consumption with all-cause, cancer, and cardiovascular mortality in 65,226 English people included in the Health Survey for England from 2001 to 2013. Oyebode et al. found that people who consumed more vegetable and fruit were generally older, non-smokers, women, educated, and physically more active than the rest of the population. Fruit and vegetable consumption was inversely correlated with all-cause, cancer, and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality, with a threshold of seven or more portions a day for all-cause and CVD mortality, five and less for cancer, and seven or more for CVD. When vegetable and fruit consumption were considered separately, vegetable were more beneficial than fruit on cancer and CVD survival. Specifically, fresh vegetables, salad, fresh fruit, and dried fruit were inversely correlated with mortality; instead canned/ frozen fruit consumption was directly correlated with increased mortality. This could be because some fresh vegetables and all fresh fruit are consumed raw, preserving all their nutrition facts; instead, canned fruit have a high content of sugar that can cause health problems if consumed in excess. As the authors discuss, usually frozen fruit is considered to be equivalent to raw fruit; therefore, the ambiguity of this study might be due to the way the survey was conducted with questions that didn’t distinguish between canned and frozen fruit.

”In 1990, the WHO issued recommendations for a minimum daily intake of 400 g of fruit and vegetables, based on evidence that higher levels were protective against [. . .] CVD and some cancers,”¹ leading to various campaigns in Europe, the United States, and Australia for inducing people to consume more vegetables and fruits, not based on any valuable evidence. The present study provides this evidence. Although the study might be missing some information because of the self-report survey, this is the first analysis correlating fruit and vegetable consumption with mortality on a nationwide population.

This report shows that eating seven or more portions of vegetables a day decreases mortality. Unfortunately, vegetables and fruit are more expensive than the majority of unhealthy chips, sauces, or cookies that are sold on the aisles of the grocery stores, leading to a less consumption of vegetable and fruit in low-income houses². Nutritional campaigns might not be effective in promoting a healthier diet, if the prices of healthy food remain high.

A more incisive policy should be carried out: it should be based on price cut and not only limited to surveys and statistics.

1. Oyebode O., Gordon-Dseagu V., Walker A., Mindell, JS. Fruit and vegetable consumption and all-cause, cancer and CVD mortality: analysis of Health Survey for England data. J Epidemiol Community Health, 31 March 2014

2. Thompson J. ‘Diet and healthy eating’. Chapter 5 In: Craig R, Shelton N, eds. Health Survey for England 2007. Knowledge, attitudes and behaviours. London: NHS Information Centre, 2008;107–48