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A few years ago, I was able to attend a presentation by a hospital's dietician regarding Americans' eating habits.
She discussed in detail results of a recent survey regarding vegetable consumption that were quite frankly, amazing.
Before the big reveal, she asked the crowd what we thought would be the most frequent survey responses to the question "What vegetables do you routinely include in your diet?"
Green beans were immediately mentioned.
Nope.
How about tomatoes? Sorry.
I guessed corn. Lots of people like corn, especially corn on the cob. Has to be a top response, right?
Wrong again.
Broccoli? Cauliflower? Lima Beans? Baked Beans? Onions? Zucchinni?
No. No. No. No. No. No.
The top four answers were (in no particular order):
• French Fries;
• Lettuce;
• Potato Chips;
• and Ketchup.
So to recap, of the top four "vegetables" consumed by Americans, three aren't vegetables, and the fourth is the least nutritious one on the planet (lettuce).
Is it any wonder obesity in America, especially with children, is at record levels?
Various market surveys, such as the one in which folks list French fries and potato chips as their favorite vegetables, confirm what our eyes tell us: Americans may want to "Go Green," but we sure don't want to "Eat Green."
In 1984, 22 percent of all in-home dinners included a salad. Today, that number is down to 16 percent, while the total number of meals including a vegetable of any kind (no french fries don't count) dropped to 23 percent, or less than one in four.
Also, the number of salads ordered as a main course for either the noon or evening meal has dropped more than half in the last 20 years.
(On a somewhat unrelated side note, the number of homemakers who agreed with the statement "children should not be allowed to eat sweets" dropped from more than 50 percent to less than 30 percent. Coincidentally, the number of overweight kids has increased to an all-time high of 36 percent.)
A few years ago, the federal government in its infinite wisdom reacted to the decline of vegetable and fruit consumption by increasing the recommended number of servings to 4.5 for people who eat 2,000 calories a day.
Recommending more fruit and vegetables to a populace already not eating enough fruits and vegetables seems like some strange negotiating technique to me.
And not surprisingly, it has proven to be a strategy that bears no fruit (pun fully intended).
In the last 10 years, the number of vegetables we consume in a year has dropped every year from 427-402. What's most surprising though is the age demographic most responsible for that decline. You would like to blame children and their irresponsible parents, but actually, vegetable consumption for those between the ages of 2-17 is up from 351-372 a year. Now, that's still woefully low, but its better largely due to increased standards in the school lunch program.
No, it's not children who are the cause of the vegetable's demise. It's their parents, and more specifically, their grandparents.
Since 2004, vegetable consumption in adults over the age of 50 has dropped from 522-442 a year.
In full disclosure, there are a lot of positive trends regarding American's diets. We are eating three times as much organic food. Red meat consumption is down about 20 percent. Chicken consumption is up about the same. And the number of unhealthy snacks we consume is decreasing along with sugary drinks.
But when it comes to the greenery ... we aren't doing so good unless we can fry them or slather them in cheese, which kind of defeats the point.
I spent some time with a good friend of mine recently who lost more than 30 pounds this year. His comment to me was "it's amazing how much weight you can lose when you start paying attention to what you eat."
He didn't use a fad diet, start spending 10 hours a day at the gym, or popping weight loss pills. He simply reduced fatty foods, and ate more fruits and vegetables. Down went the weight, up went the energy.
It's not all that tricky or complicated; but convincing Americans to start eating their vegetables may be.
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Gregory Orear is the publisher of The Journal. His award-winning weekly column, "What's Going On," has been published in four newspapers in three states for more than 20 years. He can be contacted at gorear@nujournal.com.