News Corp Australia’s leading food brand taste.com.au has revealed the findings of their Great Aussie Eating Survey of 22,000 Australians.
Running over four weeks across taste.com.au and the News Corp Australia Sunday mastheads, the Great Aussie Eating Survey, now in its third year, captures a true picture of the nutritional health status of the nation.
Results reveal that Australians adults are falling short of meeting the recommended daily intake (RDI) for the key dietary food groups, especially for vegetables.
When it comes to meeting their recommended daily intake of fruit and vegetables, 93 per cent of Australian adults are falling short.
Furthermore, only one in 10 meet the required five or more serves of vegetables per day.
Only five per cent are meeting the recommended five serves of wholegrains per day.
The daily intake for dairy is recommended at no less than 2.5 serves per day, however with an average consumption of 1.7 serves, only 22 per cent of Australians meet the requirement.
Protein is relatively the best performing food group, yet only 65 per cent of Australians meet the RDI for having 2-3 serves per day.
More Australians are skipping breakfast with 16 per cent saying they currently do not have breakfast, which is up from 12 per cent in 2015.
Consumption of caffeinated hot tea or coffee in a typical 3 day period has jumped to 83 per cent from 77 per cent in 2015.
Australians are also overindulging in their guilty pleasures.
Succumbing to their sugar cravings, over a typical three day period 2 in 3 are eating lollies or chocolate and almost 1 in 2 are eating sweet biscuits.
Taste.com.au editor-in-chief Brodee Myers said: “Each year, we’ve seen Australians are not as healthy as they think they are.
“Very few even come close to meeting their recommended daily allowances.
“In particular, fruit and vegetable intake is startlingly low, with 7 per cent of Aussies getting their recommended daily intake.
“This result points to the potential for major negative impacts on Australians’ health, including heightened risk of disease and reduced longevity, based on recent international studies into the impact of low fruit and vegetable intake, including one of the biggest of its kind out of Harvard University last year.
“Through our multi-platform Eat Real initiative, which aims to break down the perceived barriers and misinformation to healthy eating, we have seen a hunger for healthy content.
“Across taste.com.au virtually all key health-related search terms are on the rise year-on-year.
“Yet, despite this unprecedented interest and engagement in healthy content, the results of this survey tell a different story.
“Taste.com.au has influence on millions of meals every year and we want to make healthy eating accessible and easy for everyone.
“The insights from our Great Aussie Eating Survey will fuel the expansion of Eat Real.
What we’re seeing clearly is that home cooking is the biggest revolution we can all make to our own health, so we are revolving the entire Eat Real ecosystem around that”.
The Great Aussie Eating Survey is the first of two major studies into healthy eating being released by taste.com.au in early 2019.
Recipe for Health, a landmark multi-disciplinary study exploring Australian consumers’ relationship with food and health, will be unveiled at the end of February.
Taste.com.au launched their new six-part podcast series Eat Real Unwrapped last week to bust the myths and break down the barriers to healthy eating.
