MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Fresh fruit and vegetables five times a day

Next Wednesday the Chilean Ministry of Agriculture will launch the “5 times a day” program targeted to fight obesity by promoting the consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables.

The "5 times a day" program contemplates massive public and educational campaigns to stimulate consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables in line with the World Health Organization target of increasing the current 166 grams per day ingest to 400 grams, which is equivalent to five portions.

The program is organized by Chile's Ministry of Agriculture and sponsored by the Public Health ministry. "One of the alternatives to be implemented in supermarkets and neighbourhood markets is the distribution of literature describing the advantages of consuming fresh vegetables and fruit, thus helping to improve the quality of the produce supplied", said Alejandro Rojas Agriculture minister.

The program sponsored by WHO and the International Association for Cancer Research is currently effective in over forty countries worldwide.

A non profit organization coordinated by the Pan American Health Organization and Chile's Nutrition and Food Technology Institute is responsible for the actual implementation of the program with support from the vegetable and fruit industry and several of Chile's most technologically advanced universities.

In this context the commitment is "to develop a joint effort for the production of quality vegetables and fruit, and promote healthy food which will help improve people's health and combat obesity".

Among the private organizations supporting the "5 times a day" program are Chile's Agriculture Association; Fruit Growers' Federation and the Exporters Association.