Most Vietnamese people don't pay attention to nutrition, says Nguyen Thi Lam, the deputy director of the National Institute of Nutrition.
Nutrition awareness was lacking among people with low incomes and those who were better off, the rich often ate a lot of food but with little nutrition, while some children suffered from malnutrition and rickets because their mothers lacked the knowledge to raise their babies properly, she said.
A recent survey by the National Institute of Nutrition found people in the countryside consume 200 grams of vegetables a day on average, half of what the World Health Organisation recommend. This figure was unchanged from 1985 when Viet Nam was short of a lot of foods, including vegetables.
Le Bach Mai, deputy director of the institute, said at a conference on food safety held in Ha Noi last week that the amount of starch consumed daily in Viet Nam had doubled in the past decade from 16 to 33 grams per person.
Vietnamese children often drank too many soft drinks and too much sweetened milk, she said.
Mai said 43 per cent of cancer cases in the country were related to food consumption. These include the consumption of unsafe food, poor nutrition and improper food processing.
Experts blame the low number of people eating vegetables on the fear that they are not safe.
