It’s no secret that most Americans do a pretty lousy job when it comes to following mom’s advice to eat their vegetables.

In fact, according to estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, less than 10 percent of Americans eat the recommended amount of two to three cups of vegetables per day. That means many of us aren’t getting enough of key nutrients, like potassium and dietary fiber, and vitamins that keep us healthy.

But that statistic appears likely to change in the near future, according to a new analysis released this month by the NPD Group, a market research firm.

According to the firm’s research, consumers under the age of 40 are eating 52 percent more fresh vegetables and 59 percent more frozen vegetables than they were a decade ago. Conversely, the boomer generation — aged 60 and up — is eating 30 percent less fresh vegetables, as well as 4 percent less frozen vegetables, over the same time frame.

David Portalatin, vice president and food consumption industry analyst at NPD, said the data is a sign that younger generations of eaters are “turning back the clock” when it comes to the food they eat.

Millennials, he said, appear to prefer food that is fresh and often local or in season instead of the fast food and packaged convenience foods that began to proliferate at the time their parents’ generation — today’s boomers — were themselves thirty-somethings.

“The younger generation is taking a different look at these things,” Portalatin told The Huffington Post. “What’s old is new again.”

  body and soul, health, healthy living