Eat your greens? Five a day may not be enough | Hawkes Bay News | Local News in Hawkes Bay

A Hawke's Bay nutrition researcher is undertaking a year-long study that challenges the traditional target of eating five fruit and vegetable servings a day, which could bring New Zealand more in line with other developed countries.

Caroline Gunn is orchestrating a trial at Massey University that will see participants increase their daily consumption of fruit and vegetables to nine servings.

Ms Gunn, of Waiohiki, said New Zealand was "quite behind" other countries, with its lower recommended daily intake of fruit and vegetables.

The Ministry of Health pushed for three servings of vegetables and two of fruit as minimum daily consumption.

Australians however, were urged to eat seven servings a day and Americans between five and nine.

Five servings were recommended in Britain, but this excluded starchy vegetables such as kumara and potatoes.

The ministry defended its recommendation stating: "We are not aware that there is evidence showing that simply raising the recommendations results in increased intakes."

Its recommendations were set according to what was "achievable and affordable". Sport Hawke's Bay active living dietitian Joanne Morete said people needed to remember five servings was a minimum target, and the message was "5-plus a day".

She agreed better health could be achieved by eating more than five servings a day, but said many people already struggled to reach the minimum.

"When you're out in the community, we just find five [servings] is quite high, [especially] with the cost of things at the moment ... When we tell people eight servings they just roll their eyes."

Men were particularly bad at reaching the recommended target, she said.

Ms Gunn agreed it was easier to "just grab a sandwich" rather than make a salad for lunch. But her feasibility study last year found with forward planning, people could eat nine servings of fruit and vegetables every day.

"They had to plan it, buy in bulk and have more storage [space] in the fridge and pantry and plan their meals ... and yes they did it," she said.

Ms Gunn's study would examine the bone health of 150 participants from Hawke's Bay, Palmerston North and Auckland to examine the effect of increased vitamins and antioxidants.

Other researchers would use the data to investigate how an increased fruit and vegetable intake affected metabolism and the body's inflammatory responses.

The study zeroed in on post-menopausal women aged between 50 and 70, as their bone health was most likely to benefit from increased vitamins and antioxidants, but Ms Gunn said the results would apply to the general population.

According to the Ministry of Health, fruit and vegetable consumption would help prevent a number of people from developing common chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and some cancers.

Ms Gunn's study was funded by Hawke's Bay Medical Research Foundation.

Post-menopausal women in Hawke's Bay willing to take part in the study's control group could contact Caroline Gunn on c.a.gunn@massey.co.nz. They would not have to make changes to their diet.