People develop eating habits early in life and these habits often continue throughout one's life. Knowledge about food choices influence lifelong eating patterns. A survey instrument was developed and pre-tested to measure vegetable knowledge and preferences. Knowledge questions were based on the Food Guide Pyramid, Dietary Guidelines and adapted from a questionnaire used with adults. Youth were asked to list their favorite vegetable and the vegetables that they had eaten on the previous day. Three general questions were asked about vegetable consumption. Demographic data was also requested. After receiving IRB approval, the survey was sent to a random sample of 1000 parents of youth 12-15 years old requesting that their child participate. A 32% return rate was obtained; 40% responding were males and 60% were females. The majority of the respondents (83%) lived in a city over 1,000. The top three favorite vegetables were corn, carrots and potato. The top three vegetables eaten the previous day were potato, carrots and corn. The knowledge scores ranged from 0 to 10 (maximum score of 10) with a mean of 3.2+/-1.9. About half (50.4%) of the youth knew that teenagers should eat 3-5 servings of vegetables per day. Only 42% of the respondents knew the recommended serving size for corn. Forty four percent of the youth could identify carrots as a good source of vitamin A in comparison to 37% who identified broccoli as a good source of vitamin C. On the previous day, 41% of the youth stated that they had eaten at least 1 green salad and half (49.8%) of the youth ate either French fries or potato chips. Results indicate that educational efforts about vegetables need to be targeted toward youth to enhance their knowledge with the goal of increasing the variety and amount of vegetables consumed.