Over the past 5-10 years, the amount of information available online with regard to nutrition, dieting and cooking advice has grown exponentially. Australian consumers broadly understand that including vegetables in their weekly eating habits will be beneficial for their health, but the endless stream of new dieting fads makes it hard for consumers to understand the difference between scientifically researched, proven information and unproven advice being shared by organisations for commercial gain.

To help meet Australian consumers’ information needs, the vegetable industry (through a strategic levy investment by Hort Innovation) funds an information portal called Veggycation. This portal has recently been reviewed and updated to better meet the evolving demands of a modern audience.

Veggycation shows Australians how to love vegetables, with entries for every type of vegetable under the sun. The wide range of information available through Veggycation includes nutritional information, optimum cooking methods, preparation and storage – everything that anyone buying vegetables could need to get the best out of their purchase.

All information on the site is based on pre-approved nutrition and health claims from the Food Standards Australia & New Zealand (FSANZ) Standard 1.2.7 and nutritional information from the NUTTAB database.

Veggycation also includes information for growers, including optimum harvesting times, postharvest storage temperature guides, any known benefits of controlled atmosphere storage, ethylene sensitivity, humidity storage and notes on key disease and infection issues.

The final report from the project reviewing and updating Veggycation is now available on the InfoVeg database.

To visit Veggycation and make the most of this levy-funded resource, click here.

This post appeared in the AUSVEG Weekly Update published 12 March 2019. Subscribe to the Update using our online form to receive the latest industry news in your inbox every week!