For fruits and vegetables, Americans favor 'fresh.'

FDA Consumer, Oct, 1985 by Annabel Hecht

The survey found that nearly half of fresh fruits were eaten as snacks. In contrast, most fresh vegetables are eaten at mealtime.

Consumers who are most concerned about nutrition, who exercise the most, and who are on diets are most likely to eat fresh fruits and vegetables, according to the survey. Fresh produce eaters are also highly interested in cooking, have more modern cooking equipment, own more cookbooks, and clip recipes from newspapers and magazines.

One vegetable not keeping pace with the fresh produce upswing is the old standby, the potato. At the turn of the century, potatoes had a prominent place on the nation's dinner plates and, in fact, provided the principal source of vitamin C in American diets. In 1910, per capita consumption of white and sweet potatoes was 221 pounds per person. But since that time, consumption of potatoes has declined markedly, down to 90 pounds in 1984.

The drop in potato consumption parallels a drop in grain consumption. The reason, it has been suggested, is America's increasing affluence. "With more money to spend, our preferences have shifted away from 'starchy' foods to the higher priced 'protein' foods, such as meat," say USDA food economists Louise Page and Berta Friend in "The Changing United States Diet" (BioScience, March 1978).

Well over half of the total 1983 per capita consumption of white potatoes (farm-weight basis) was of processed products, including canned, frozen, chips, shoestrings and dehydrated.

Frozen potatoes take the biggest bite. A staggering 3.9 billion pounds of spuds ended up as frozen french fries in 1984, 3.4 billion pounds of them going to restaurants. An additional 789 million pounds were turned into hash browns and other potato products, including "taters," stew, puffs, O'Brien, and patties.

Consumption of frozen potatoes has jumped more than fourfold over the past two decades, mainly due to greater use of these products in cafeterias, restaurants and other eating places. Chip consumption also rose about one-third.

Fresh potatoes may come back into their own, thanks to the recent introduction of baked potatoes in fast food outlets, says USDA's Putnam. Consumption may also get a boost from the increasing home use of microwave ovens that can turn out a baked potatoe in a matter of minutes instead of an hour. (Microwave oven sales are booming; factory shipments went from 1 million units in 1975 to over 9 million in 1984.)

Although sweet potatoes are included along with white potatoes in USDA data, people in the potato business say they are not related. Sweet potatoes, or yams (as they are sometimes called), are not a universal favorite. Americans ate just over three pounds per capita of fresh sweet potatoes in 1983, about half the amount consumed 20 years earlier. Consumption of processed sweet potatoes--canned and frozen--has stayed at about a pound per person.

As they grow older, Mary and Johnny may never develop a taste for sweet potatoes. The Packer survey found only 57 percent of the respondents in the 18-to-29 age group had ever purchased yams. But there is no doubt that our young friends will come around to eating more fresh fruits and vegetables if present concerns about health and nutrition continue to grow.