Brexit Could Make Eating 5-A-Day Unaffordable

Are things about to go pear shaped?

Brexit Could Make Eating 5-A-Day Unaffordable

by Vicky Spratt |
Updated on

Do you eat your 5-A-Day? Do you really? Every single day? It’s pretty expensive to maintain a healthy diet, isn’t it? Do you also baulk at the cost of fruit when you scan it at the self-checkout? Well, it could be about to get a whole lot more expensive?

Why? Because Brexit, of course. A new report by a think tank called the Food Foundation, Farming For 5-A-Day, has found that some varieties of fruit and vegetables could become unaffordable for many people if the UK doesn’t reach a deal when it finally leaves the European Union. As we all know, ‘no deal’ is absolutely an option according to the government.

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What we eat and how much it costs is directly affected by trade deals, tariffs, exchange rates and labour costs. The report says that it costs £37.58 a week for a household of four people to consume five pieces of fruit and veg a day as things stand. They estimate that Brexit could add up to £158 a year to the amount such a family spends on fruit and veg.

Some experts have called for 5-A-Day to be increased to 7-A-Daybecause, well, the more fruit and veg you eat the lower the risk of dying. The NHS website quotes a study from University College London which found that people who ate seven or more portions a day had a 33% reduced risk of death compared with people who ate less than one portion.

However, at the moment, only around a quarter of people aged between 19 and 64 meet their recommended five-a-day goal.

Food Foundation have warned that the poorest will be hardest hit if food prices rise because of Brexit. They have calculated that at least 33 of this country’s most popular fruit and vegetables will be directly affected by new trade rules. Almost half of all vegetables and 83% of the fruit we consume in the UK is imported, what is grown here relies on workers form the EU for production. We rely on importing fruit and veg more than we do with drinks, meat, oil, sugar and cereals.

According to this reportsome of our favourite fruit and vegetables are oranges, grapes, lemons, nectarines and peaches, garlic, sweetcorn, avocados, bananas, grapefruit and kiwis are also the ones we are least self-sufficient when it comes to producing.

We need to find ways to grow more apples, broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms, spinach and tomatoes here as opposed to relying on imports, the think tank says. The good news, however, is that we’re pretty good at producing leeks, cabbage, carrots and parsnips so, if it all goes pear shaped (sorry) after Brexit at least there will be plenty of those to go around.

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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.

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