A Centers for Disease Control report rates fruit and vegetable consumption by state and offers others measuring sticks for consumer access to healthy food. California leads the U.S. in several categories.
Known as the State Indicator Report on Fruits and Vegetables, the report can be used to show how states support consumption of fruits and vegetables and help identify opportunities for improvement in fruit and vegetable access.
The CDC report is the second of its type, with the first report issued by the CDC in 2009.
The 2013 report reveals that adults in the U.S. consume fruit about 1.1 times per day and vegetables about 1.6 times per day.
The daily median intake for fruits (times per day) was highest in California, the District of Columbia, Connecticut and New Hampshire, while the states for lowest fruit consumption were Mississippi and Oklahoma.
California also led the U.S. in daily vegetable consumption while Iowa, Mississippi, North Dakota and South Dakota shared the low mark.
Only about 70 percent of all census tracts in the U.S. have at least one store that offers a variety of affordable fruits and vegetables. The greatest access to stores that offer fruits and vegetables were California (82 percent), New York (79 percent), Florida (79 percent), the District of Columbia (78 percent) and Oregon (77 percent). On the other end of the spectrum, Vermont has the lowest percentage of census tracts (44 peracent) with a store that offers fruits and vegetables, followed by South Dakota (46 percent), Alaska (49 percent) and North Dakota (50 percent).
The U.S. average for farmers’s markets per 100,000 population is 2.5, according to the report. Vermont, Wyoming, Iowa, and New Hampshire all have more than seven farmers markets per 100,000 state residents, while Texas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Nevada, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah all reported less than two farmers markets per 100,000 population.