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Abstract
Concern over diet-health relationships has moved to the forefront of public health concerns in
the UK and much of the developed world. It has been estimated, for example, that obesity costs
the UK National Health Service up to £6b per year (Rayner and Scarborough, 2005), but if all
consumers were to follow recommended healthy eating guidelines there would be major implications
for food consumption, land use and international trade (Srinivasan et al, 2006). This is
unlikely to happen, at least in the short term, but it is realistic to anticipate some dietary adjustment
toward the recommendations, resulting in an improvement in diet quality (Mazzocchi et
al, 2007). Although consumers are reluctant to make major changes to their diets, they may be
prepared to substitute existing foods for healthier alternatives.
Three of the most prominent nutritional recommendations are to consume more fruit and vegetables,
which contain phytochemicals beneficial to health, reduce consumption of saturated fatty
acids (SFA) and increase intake of long-chain n-3 fatty acids (FA). In the first case,
consumption of fruit and vegetables has been stable at around three 80 g portions per person per
day according to the Health Survey for England. It is estimated that 42,200 deaths per year
could be avoided in England and 411,000 Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) could be saved
if fruit and vegetable consumption were increased to the recommended 5 portions per day (Ofcom
2006). As well as continuing to encourage people to eat more, it could be desirable to ‘intensify’
the beneficial phytochemical content of existing fruit and vegetables.