Vegetables tracked Broccoli Chillies Corn Green Peas Kale Leeks Lettuce

5
Industry Insight continued.
To help address these concerns about unhealthy diets in children, HIA commissioned research
into strategic initiatives to increase their vegetable consumption through project VG13090 A
strategy to address consumption of vegetables in children. This has resulted in four priority areas
of future focus: collaboration between those in and outside the horticulture industry; initiatives to
engage children; continued research into new initiatives; and policy changes. These should be
pursued whilst acknowledging the difficulty parents have with recognising their role in the
problem, as well as working with what parents told us in Wave 8 of the current Vegetable
Consumption Tracker: that the taste of particular vegetables has an impact on children’s
consumption habits.
This tracker told us that vegetables with bitter, sour, tart or aniseed-like flavour (such as witlof,
chicory, artichoke and fennel) can inhibit consumption, suggesting that offering children
vegetables with a blander or sweeter flavour profile may help in this most important quest!