Salad Consumption in the U.S. What We Eat in America, NHANES 2011-2014

Intake of vegetables, and particularly raw vegetables, is associated with reduced risk of chronic diseases such as cancer (1,2), diabetes (3), and cardiovascular disease (3,4). Most individuals in the U.S. consume far less vegetables than recommended (5). One strategy proposed to boost their consumption is to include vegetable dishes, such as salads, in most meals and snacks (5). However, the most recently published information about nationwide salad intake was based on data from 1988-1994 (6). The purpose of this report is to describe current salad consumption by the U.S. population, based on one day of 24-hour recall data collected in What We Eat in America, NHANES 2011-2014 (7). The term “salad(s)” refers to raw vegetable-based salads and excludes items such as pasta salad, potato salad, and tuna salad .