Per capita numbers to beat the band

Here is the link to the opening page of a USDA Economic Research Service report that provides all kinds of variations and permutations on per capita consumption numbers. See the carrot chart above for an example of the data in the ERS report.

Sunday news roundup

It is my experience that the number of daily consumer press stories that are in the orbit of the fresh produce solar system average about 10 a day. Some are more important than others. Here are today highlights from TK Hot Picks (listed below and right).

This story

Government agencies review response to food safety concerns
Source: Sacramento Bee
Lede: National alarm over whether it's safe to eat lettuce and spinach has grown so great that federal officials have set a public hearing Tuesday in Oakland, Calif., to map out the government's response.
Notable quote: "This hearing is a big deal," said Elisa Odabashian, director of the West Coast office of Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports. "The FDA knows they need to do something."
Gist: Preview to Tuesday meeting


Farm bill has unusual focus: fruits and veggies
Source: Stephen Hedges, Chicago Tribune
Lede: The building congressional debate over the Bush administration's proposed 2007 farm bill involves something unusual: actual food.This bill puts new emphasis on what the Department of Agriculture calls specialty crops: fruits, vegetables and nuts from trees.
Notable quote: "The specialty crop group has always been tangentially involved, and now we expect to be in the middle of things," said John Keeling, executive vice president and chief executive of the National Potato Council.
Gist: Recounting of specialty crop importance to U.S. ag receipts, nutrition priorities and organic ag. Industry concern noted about the planting flex provision for fruits and vegetables.


House Bill Would Help Growers Of Citrus, Spinach
Source: AP
Lede: California citrus farmers would get $20 million, spinach growers $25 million and salmon fishermen $60.4 million in an emergency war spending bill that passed a House committee Thursday.
Notable quote: None
Gist: Money for citrus and spinach growers part of a $124 billion war spending bill that includes a controversial Iraq troop withdrawl date of Sept. 1. The full House and the Senate have to consider this bill, but California senators will try to keep the money related to damages from January freeze in the bill.


Produce safety procedures that work
Source: Nancy Luna, Orange County Register
Lede: At a recent investor conference, an executive tied to Irvine-based Taco Bell described the company's brush with E. coli as an "opportunity" to develop better farm safety procedures.
Notable quote: "The best way to avoid the carnage of a train wreck is to do everything you can do make sure the wreck never happens," said Steve Lash, director of supply chain management for El Pollo Loco in Irvine.
Gist: This story is one part feature on El Pollo Loco and another on the emerging trend of pathogen testing of produce. Michael Doyle of the University of Georgia is also quoted. This is the second of a three part series.


Local truckers react to new pilot program
Source: William Wilczewski, Nogales International
Lede: In a little more than a month, as many as 100 approved Mexican trucking companies will be able to deliver goods beyond the 25-mile border zone for the first time since 1982.
Notable quote: "We specialize in the produce part of the deal here," explained Chairman of the Greater Nogales and Santa Cruz County Port Authority Terry Shannon Jr., of Shannon Brokerage. "And as you know, fruits and vegetables are highly perishable. Because of that, it's hard for me to picture your average company wanting to set up loads of mangoes from Mazatlan or honeydews from Hermosilla to go straight to Chicago.
Gist: Nogales produce handlers aren't worried about a big shift toward direct shipments from Mexican growing fields to U.S. retailers. One reason: FDA inspections at the border.

News flash: Americans still not eating their fruits, vegetables

Just as the Produce for Better Health Foundation is set to launch the Fruits and Veggies: More Matters campaign, the Centers for Disease Control is all over the news wires with coverage of a CDC study that reveals that a study that, yes, Americans are still not eating enough fruits and veggies.

The strange thing about this coverage is I couldn't find any hot links on the CDC site to the study that was cited in the AP coverage noted above. If anyone finds a link to the study, leave it as a comment to this post.

It leaves me wondering if the CDC news was planted just ahead of the More Matters launch to raise the awareness of the need for a new initiative to raise fruit and vegetable consumption. Yet, at the same time, the CDC makes no mention of the More Matters launch, which you would think would have fit perfectly into the context of the story. The long-running 5 a Day public/private effort to move the consumption needle also was left unmentioned.

Here are some excerpts from the AP coverage:

Fewer than a third of American adults eat the amount of fruits and vegetables the government recommends, a trend that's remained steady for more than a decade, health officials said.
That's "well below" the government's goal of getting 75 percent of Americans to eat two servings of fruits and having half of the population consume three servings of vegetables each day by 2010, said Larry Cohen of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. The diet survey, part of a huge federal health survey of every state, is based on responses from 305,000 adults in 2005. It indicates the country is only about halfway toward meeting its healthy eating goal three years from now.
"We're really concerned with the lack of success in meeting these national goals," said Cohen, who works in CDC's nutrition and physical activity division.
Although the rate of fruit and vegetable consumption has remained unchanged since 1994, health officials said the goal is still within reach.
"We have more work to do over the next few years," spokeswoman Rachel Ciccarone said.
Specifically, the survey showed that 27 percent of adults ate vegetables three times a day, and about 33 percent ate fruit twice a day. A serving size is a half-cup for most fruits and vegetables, one cup for leafy greens.

TK: Here was the chance for the drop-in about the More Matters campaign, CDC.

Senior citizens were more likely than others to follow Mom's advice to eat more veggies, with slightly more than a third of that group eating three or more servings each day.

TK: Proof that Mom (and Dad's) advice still rings in our ears in our senior years.

Younger adults, ages 18 to 24, ate the fewest vegetables. Nearly four-fifths of that age category scraped the veggies to the side of their plates - if they had vegetables on the plate at all.
Likewise, seniors also ate the most fruit, with nearly 46 percent eating two or more servings of fruit daily. People age 35 to 44 ate fruit the least, with fewer than 28 percent eating the recommended amount of fruit each day.

TK: GenX moms are the target audience for More Matters, and there is plenty of work to do in the 24 to 44 age group.

The federal agency said it doesn't know why people aren't eating more veggies or fruits. Cohen said future surveys will ask people what other foods they are eating.

TK: A MSNBC instant poll (much like the famed Fresh Talk poll) asked this question and got these responses from 559 people:

A. I don't have time (37%)

B. They're expensive (27%)

C. I prefer other foods (20%)

D. I don't like how they taste(10%)

E. I don't know how to cook them(6.4%)

Telephone questioners asked how often they consumed fruit juice, fruit and vegetables. Although Hispanics ate the most fruits (37 percent) compared with blacks and non-Hispanic whites, they ate the fewest vegetables, (about 20 percent). Non-Hispanic whites, in contrast, ate the fewest fruits (31 percent) but the most veggies (28 percent).
Cohen said the CDC has been working on family and community programs to get more people to eat their veggies. The agency is working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to get more fresh produce into schools.
Krause said health officials should offer people simple options for getting fruits and vegetables in their diets, such as easy recipes in cooking classes and fruit smoothies or shakes in schools.
"If that's a way of getting it in, at least it's in the right direction," she said. "Certainly (whole) fruit is a better choice, but that could be the next alternative."

TK: I'm disappointed in how the CDC handled this survey. Unless it was a part of some grand strategy, CDC officials missed an obvious chance to make note of the More Matters launch.