The Dole Food Company is offering its 5 A Day Adventures nutritional education CD-ROM to consumers, in response to demand from parents for multimedia software for their children, according to Dole.

Dole is also expanding interactive programs on its 5 A Day home page as the food company puts more emphasis behind its multimedia educational activities.

The CD-ROM and Internet program was launched by Dole to encourage children to eat five servings of fruits and vegetables a day.

The CD-ROM, which is provided free to elementary schools across the U.S., is being used in more than 19,000 schools. A home page (http://www.dole5aday.com) and an e-mail address (fiveaday@bev.net) allow children to interact with more than 40 vegetable characters, like Bobby Banana and Barney Broccoli, who also appear in the CD-ROM. The characters are designed to help teach children about nutrition.

A recent newsletter that Dole sends to teachers who have ordered the CD-ROM cites a national study of 3,000 kids from two to 18, conducted by the National Cancer Institute and U.S. Department of Agriculture, which found that:

– 50 percent of children eat one serving of fruit a day;

– 30 percent of children eat less than one serving of vegetables a day;

– 25 percent of all vegetables eaten by children are french fries.