On average, people in the Netherlands consume 153 grams of vegetables per day. That is nearly 100 grams less than the recommended daily intake of 250 grams advised by the Netherlands Nutrition Centre. Over 40% of the vegetables consumed are fruiting vegetables, such as tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, courgettes, and aubergines. In this study, we examined the potential impact on healthcare costs if the entire Dutch population were to consume the recommended 250 grams of vegetables daily—focusing particularly on the contribution of fruiting vegetables.
According to the Dutch Health Council, there are three well-established links between vegetable consumption and reduced disease risk: higher vegetable intake is associated with a lower incidence of ischaemic stroke, ischaemic heart disease, and colorectal cancer. In the calculation of potential benefits, we considered both savings in healthcare costs (e.g. fewer hospital admissions and reduced medication use) and the increase in healthy life years, valued using the VOLY (value of a life year).
Our analysis shows that the total health-related costs of the three aforementioned diseases currently amount to approximately € 56.9 billion per year: about € 3.5 billion in direct healthcare costs and over € 53 billion in indirect costs from lost healthy life years. The impact on direct healthcare costs is therefore relatively limited compared to the effect on lost healthy life years. Achieving sufficient vegetable consumption could lead to total annual savings of € 3.42 billion (around 6%), of which approximately € 1.39 billion can be attributed to increased consumption of fruiting vegetables.