MUNCHING melons and crunching carrots could become a new food fad in deprived parts of Bolton -- thanks to lottery cash.

Bolton Primary Care Trust is to receive a £150,000 grant from the National Lottery's New Opportunities Fund to promote a scheme urging people to eat five portions of fruit and veg each day.

As well as funding a co-ordinator for the project, a part time worker will be employed to work with schools in promoting healthy eating.

People will be helped to grow their own food and learn how to cook it -- and there will be community-based activities. These will be particularly targeted at the Oldhams, Great Lever, Deane, Tonge, New Lane, Springfield and Kearsley areas. In a recent Bolton health survey, these were the communities identified as areas where help is needed to promote healthy eating.

Evidence suggests that eating plenty of different fruit and vegetables each day can help reduce the risk of some cancers, heart disease and stroke, and that healthy eating habits formed in childhood can help prevent disease later in life.

In England children eat, on average, just two or three portions of fruit and vegetables each day, dropping to less than three once they reach adulthood.

The unemployed and those on low incomes tend to eat half the amount of fruit and vegetables consumed by more wealthy people. News of the successful lottery bid was welcomed by Bolton's director of public health, Jan Hutchinson.

"We know there are some parts of Bolton with higher levels of heart disease and cancer, and the project targets the areas with some of the highest levels of need," she said.