CSIRO has released an app to remind people to eat their vegetables.

Despite evidence that eating vegetables can reduce the risk of heart disease, high blood pressure and cancer, it is estimated that more than 19 million Australians aren't meeting their minimum dietary guideline recommendation.

CSIRO's new VegEze app uses game-like features to encourage Australian adults to eat more veggies through a 21 day 'Do 3 at Dinner' challenge.

CSIRO scientist Dr Gilly Hendrie says research shows that adopting a gamified approach, like the VegEze app, is an effective way of helping improve Australia's poor vegetable score-card.

“The app has helped tip the scales the most for obese people, with obese men consuming one extra serve and two extra types of vegetables per day, which is a significant increase,” Dr Hendrie said.

“By the end of the challenge, the percentage of obese men that were meeting the Australian Dietary Guidelines vegetable recommendations had increased four times to 30 per cent.

“Men in general increased their vegetable intake by three quarters of a serve.

“This resulted in 10 per cent increase of number of men meeting the guidelines, but interestingly we only saw an increase of 1.4 per cent for women.”

A report published by CSIRO last year highlighted that women generally eat more vegetables than men, which may account for the smaller increase.

The VegEze app helps people track their intake and tally up vegetable serves, with daily reminders and rewards to help people stay motivated and on-track.

The free VegEze app is available here.