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Kids in U.K. Don't Know Fruits and Vegetables?

Posted by Erika Pitera on July 30, 2008

How Widely Recognized are Vegetables?According to a recent study in the U.K., many children aren't able to recognize common fruits and vegetables. In fact, one in three kids didn't know what celery looks like.

Celery? Seriously? The survey was commissioned by a restaurant chain in the U.K. called Tootsies. Granted, the sample size was small: 200 children between the ages of 11 and 13. The study asked the children to identify 40 common varieties of fruits and vegetables, and the results are unbelievable.

Here's what they found out:
  • 35% couldn't identify celery
  • Only 8% knew what a pomegranate was
  • 6.5% recognized an eggplant
  • 9 out of 200 recognized a turnip
  • 3 out of 200 knew what an artichoke was
  • More than 1 in 5 didn't know what a potato looked like (editorial comment: except maybe in french fry or tater tot form)

Do Americans know their vegetables?At first, I was skeptical of this study. I mean, can children really be that unaware of fresh produce? But then I got to thinking about trips to the supermarket where I had to identify every fruit and vegetable in my cart in order for the cashier to ring me up. And that's no pre-teen. We're talking adults here.

So, is it really any wonder kids aren't getting the proper nutrition they need? I would love to see a similar study conducted in the U.S. I fear our results might be even more dismal than the U.K. study.

Since most of our visitors are avid cooks, we asked them how frequently they run across supermarket cashiers that can't identify the produce they are buying. Eighty percent answered "occasionally," twenty percent answered "often" ~ sadly, no one answered "never."

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Reader Comments (1)

On numerous occasions I have bought kiwi or fresh ginger root and been asked by the cashier "What is this?" More often the person has been a teenager, but I have also encountered some adults unfamiliar with what I consider everyday fruit and produce.

Posted by: Barb on August 4, 2008

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