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Vegetable consumption per capita in Europe (North America inside post)
(landgeistdotcom.files.wordpress.com)
Vegetable consumption per capita in North America (different color scale)
Source:
https://landgeist.com/2021/10/15/vegetable-consumption-in-europe/
https://landgeist.com/2023/10/31/vegetable-consumption-in-north-america/
Don't know about the methodology, but this interestingly contradicts what "health food" culture would have you believe, esp. USA vs. Western Europe, and the relative place of countries like France.
In general, poorer and less connected to global economy means more vegetables? More affluent people people can't help the convenience of other foods? The other variable would be agriculture, and depth of living in capitalist economy including the older generations (which excludes Eastern Europe). I suspect in some places relatively "silent" and unpublicized demographics, like older people in the east, can skew the stats. I wonder who eats vegetables in the US (disclaimer, never been there) and what comes to mind is poor people outside metropolitan areas.
This shows what you get when you summarize data incorrectly. It's pretty close to meaningless.
All that this shows is the differences in water content of the preferred fruits and veggies consumed in the country.
For example in turkey they eat a lot of watermelons and cucumbers.
Northern counties eat vegetables like carrots and cabbage which has a lower water content.
In order to more accurately understand vegetable consumption you must first convert to dry matter of vegetables consumed and then compare.
How?
That Europeans, specifically those around the Mediterranean Sea, are healthier than Americans because of a greater degree of vegetal nutrition. Like any complex system, there are more factors involved, I’d wager.
Are we counting corn in this? The link to their list of veggies 404s.
Because the numbers for the US would make much more sense. But yes, it's certainly more complex than that. Not all veggies are created equal, and if the proteins and fats are coming from different sources that'll be big too.
Whether we're counting potatoes could also be a big factor (especially for eastern europe eating more veggies than western)
Corn is not a vegetable though. It's a grain.
I agree, that's why I wanted to check.