CONSUMER ATTITUDES TO HEALTH IN FRUIT AND VEGETABLES

Nutrition recommendations encourage increasing the consumption of fruit and vegetables (FAV). Although consumers acknowledge that FAVs are good for health, and even explicitly express positive attitudes towards FAV, the consumption of FAV in many countries is still below recommended levels.
Health is only one factor influ¬encing consumers’ choices, and other factors such as hedonic pleasure, convenience or price can counteract perceived healthiness as a choice motivation.
Promoting the use of FAVs faces several challenges including both overt barriers, such as availability and price, but also barriers that people are not always aware of, such as gendered image of the products.
Perceived naturalness and healthiness are closely associated in FAVs which means that any added ingredients or processing may affect the perceived healthiness of products.
Current research is revealing new knowledge on the positive health effects of specific compounds in FAVs.
Combining a new positive health effect to a product that originally is perceived as being healthy is a challenge, since any modifications of the basic product may be perceived as lowering the perceived naturalness and thereby may affect negatively perceived healthiness.
Consumers do not tend to readily appreciate new health effects unless the given information or health claim aligns with their existing knowledge and experience.

XXVIII International Horticultural Congress on Science and Horticulture for People (IHC2010): International Symposium on Emerging Health Topics in Fruits and Vegetables

L. Lähteenmäki

consumer attitudes, fruit and vegetables, functional foods, flavonoids

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2012.939.4