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By Matthew Rees

Food and Health Fact #135: A strategy for boosting vegetable consumption

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How can people be encouraged to eat more vegetables? Maybe the answer is how vegetables are marketed. As part of a 2017 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers at Stanford University made daily changes to the posted descriptions of seven different vegetables in a Stanford cafeteria, but in no case were there any changes to how the vegetables were prepared or served. Carrots, for example, were labeled as “twisted citrus-glazed carrots,” “carrots with sugar-free citrus dressing,” and “smart-choice vitamin C citrus carrots.” Researchers recorded the number of diners who chose a vegetable and weighed each serving selected. The study revealed many more people choosing vegetables with “indulgent” labeling (i.e. “twisted citrus-glazed”) and consuming a much larger volume of the vegetables. The results, wrote the study’s authors, “represent a robust, applicable strategy for increasing vegetable consumption in adults, using the same indulgent, exciting, and delicious descriptors as more popular, albeit less healthy, foods.”