Fruit first: Increasing fruit intake for a healthy body and planet
Full of nutrients, packed with health benefits, sweet, sour, and sometimes a good bitter. Fruits are excellent food sources with health-boosting benefits and among the lowest environmental foodprint.
Photo by Yuliia Martsynkevych / Unsplash
Fruits are packed with essential nutrients like vitamins, minerals, and dietary fiber, providing a highly nutritious food choice and numerous health benefits. Several cohort studies reveal that consuming more fruits can significantly reduce the risk of dying from heart disease, with an estimated 5% risk reduction for every additional daily serving of fruit. People who consume eight or more servings of fruits a day are 30% less likely to experience a heart attack or stroke compared to those who consume less than 1.5 servings a day. Rich in antioxidants and fiber, fruits can act as anti-aging and anti-inflammatory agents, as well as facilitate smoother digestion, promote better gut health, and reduce the risk of certain types of cancer (eg, colon cancer).
Contradictory to other commonly consumed food groups, increasing fruit intake is not directly proportional to having higher negative environmental impacts.
Fruit production emits less than 3 kg of carbon and uses a maximum of 2.41 m2/kg land or approximately 0.7% of land used for cattle (326.21 m2/kg). Moreover, it only requires up to 420 liters of water to produce 1 kg of fruit, which is relatively low compared to beef production, which uses 2,714 liters.
In other words, increasing fruit intake is good for both people and planet.
Global and national low fruit consumption
However, despite these numerous climate and health benefits, the majority of the world’s population does not consume enough fruits.
According to the Global Health Metrics published by The Lancet (2020), low fruit consumption is defined as consuming less than 310-340 grams of fruits per day, including fresh, frozen, cooked, canned, or dried fruit, excluding fruit juices and salted or pickled fruits. However, global fruit intake today only reaches 236.7 grams per day on average.
The same trend exists in Indonesia:
Only 4.6% of the Indonesian population consumes the recommended amount of more than five servings (over 400 grams) of fruit (and vegetables) per week.
This should raise concerns given that a diet low in fruit was responsible for over 2 million DALYs and approximately 70,000 deaths in 2021, with respiratory infections and tuberculosis, neoplasms, cardiovascular diseases, and diabetes and kidney diseases as common risk factors (0.011%, 0.086%, 2.7%, 0.35%, respectively).
The reasons for this are multifactorial, ranging from their quick spoilage, insufficient quality of storage space, market quality standards and consumer preferences, excess food portion and consumer behavior, and poor quality of packaging and container.
This is where most challenges in global fruit production occur.
Globally, an estimated 25-50% of fruits are lost post-harvest. This represents a considerable loss of resources, including land, water, energy, and agricultural inputs. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 54% of food loss occurs at the initial stages of production—during post-harvest handling and storage—while the remaining 46% occurs during processing, distribution, and consumption.
In the Asia-Pacific region, nearly half of the fruits are lost before even reaching consumers. In Indonesia, however, food loss and waste reached a total of 115-184 kg per capita per year in 2022 alone, with the largest proportion of food groups wasted at the consumption stage over the past two decades.
A couple of fruits a day keep so many risk factors away
In light of World Fruit Day, several strategies can be done to incorporate more fruits into our diets.
1) Put fruit first.
Consuming fruits before our daily meals makes an excellent strategy to ensure getting the recommended daily intake of fruits. Plus, this allows us to feed and prime our gut microbiome to support smoother digestion–it’s a win-win.
2) Create an enabling fruit environment.
Our food environment plays a vital role in shaping our food choices, and all the more so with less consumed food groups, such as fruits. Optimizing our home “fruit environments” can be achieved through having quick and easy access to a couple of different favorite fruits of choice throughout the day. This means keeping one in our bag, one on the kitchen countertop, and one in our workspace. This way, each sugar fix becomes an opportunity to meet our daily fruit intake goals for healthier and more sustainable eating habits.
3) Prevent quick spoilage.
To mitigate fruit waste from improper storage and quick spoilage, consider processing freshly purchased or harvested fruits into preserves, such as jams, marmalades, and candied fruits (manisan). This strategy not only extends their shelf life but also provides delicious condiments and homemade snacks for future consumption. Alternatively, freezing is always a good option to extend the shelf life of fruits.
4) Don’t judge a fruit by its cover.
Every fruit, regardless of its appearance, holds nutritional values that we cannot otherwise get from other food sources. A piece of fruit with bumps, flaws, or blemishes on its exterior is still a fruit and retains the same beneficial nutrients as its visually perfect counterparts. Rather than discarding fruits based on their looks, let's embrace their diversity and appreciate them for the nourishment they provide.
References:
Wang, X. et al. (2014) ‘Fruit and vegetable consumption and mortality from all causes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer: Systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies’, BMJ, 349(jul29 3). doi:10.1136/bmj.g4490.
Hung, H.-C. et al. (2004) ‘Fruit and vegetable intake and risk of major chronic disease’, JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 96(21), pp. 1577–1584. doi:10.1093/jnci/djh296.
Clark, M.J. and Slavin, J.L. (2013) ‘The effect of fiber on satiety and Food Intake: A systematic review’, Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 32(3), pp. 200–211. doi:10.1080/07315724.2013.791194.
Barber, T.M. et al. (2020) ‘The health benefits of dietary fibre’, Nutrients, 12(10), p. 3209. doi:10.3390/nu12103209.
Diet low in fruit—level 3 risk (2020) The Lancet. Available at: https://www.thelancet.com/pb-assets/Lancet/gbd/summaries/risks/diet-fruits.pdf (Accessed: 01 July 2024).
Survei Kesehatan Indonesia 2023 dalam Angka (2023). Kementerian Kesehatan Republik Indonesia.
Ritchie, H., Rosado, P. and Roser, M. (no date) Environmental impacts of food production, Our World in Data. Available at: https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food?insight=meat-and-dairy-foods-tend-to-have-a-higher-carbon-footprint#key-insights (Accessed: 01 July 2024).
Fao.org (2022) FAO and MoA Start the Food Loss Study in Indonesia | FAO in Indonesia | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Available at: https://www.fao.org/indonesia/news/detail-events/en/c/1603681/ (Accessed: 01 July 2024).
Wardhani, L.T. et al. (2023) ‘Examining policy aspects of food waste in Indonesia’, IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 1270(1), p. 012022. doi:10.1088/1755-1315/1270/1/012022.
Fruit consumption by type (no date) Our World in Data. Available at: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/fruit-consumption-by-fruit-type (Accessed: 01 July 2024).
Food Loss and Waste in Indonesia: Supporting the Implementation of Circular Economy and Low Carbon Development (2021). Jakarta: Ministry of National Development Planning .
GBD compare (no date) Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Available at: https://vizhub.healthdata.org/gbd-compare/ (Accessed: 01 July 2024).
Jin, Y. et al. (2023) ‘Bioactive components in fruit interact with gut microbes’, Biology, 12(10), p. 1333. doi:10.3390/biology12101333.