Sodium Intake Tracked from Infancy and Salt Taste Preference during Adolescence: Follow-up of a Randomized Controlled Field Trial in Brazil

Home and wild food procurement was associated with greater intake of fruits and vegetables during the COVID-19 pandemic in northern New England

“…However, when combining all activities together into a single model, only gardening showed a significant association with greater fruit and vegetable consumption, with an approximately one cup-eq per week increase in consumption. Other studies have found that gardeners eat fruits and vegetables up to 2 more times per day than nongardeners (18)(19)(20) . One possible reason that we found a smaller difference in fruit and vegetable intake between respondents from gardening and non-gardening households, compared to what previous research has found, is that our survey's recall period was just 30 days, and it was conducted in the springtime, before gardeners in Vermont and Maine were harvesting significant quantities of anything other than asparagus, rhubarb, and tender greens.…”

“…In reality, causation probably works in both directions to some extent, and only experimental research designs like that of Alaimo et al (2023) can begin to disentangle gardening's effect on fruit and vegetable consumption from fruit and vegetable consumption's effect on gardening.…”

“…A recent randomized control trial found that the group that received a gardening intervention increased their vegetable consumption compared to the control group, by 0.67 servings per day (20) . In interviews, gardeners said they ate more vegetables because of increased availability, better taste, trying new dishes, pride in their homegrown food, not wanting to waste it, and emotional connections with gardens and their plants (20) .…”

“…Yet many of these studies do not have non-gardening control groups (14)(15)(16)(17) , or they are correlational, precluding examination of causal relationships (18,19) -it may not be that households eat more vegetables because they garden, but the other way around: that they garden because they like eating vegetables. A recent randomized control trial found that the group that received a gardening intervention increased their vegetable consumption compared to the control group, by 0.67 servings per day (20) . In interviews, gardeners said they ate more vegetables because of increased availability, better taste, trying new dishes, pride in their homegrown food, not wanting to waste it, and emotional connections with gardens and their plants (20) .…”