Learn Hardcore Croatian: Zdrava hrana kao što je voće i povrće sada joj je važnija od sladoleda. - Healthy food such as fruit and vegetables is now more important to her than ice cream.

Croatian clitic pronouns (mi, ti, mu, joj, nam, vam, im, je, ga, se, …) like joj and the verb je (“is”) must stand very early in the sentence, usually right after the first stressed word or phrase (“second position” rule).

That’s why we get:

Sada joj je važnija…
not Sada je joj važnija…

Other natural orders:

Zdrava hrana joj je sada važnija od sladoleda.
Sada joj je zdrava hrana važnija od sladoleda.

Why is it važnija and not something like važniji, važnije, or više važna?

The base adjective is važan = “important”.

Its regular comparative forms are:

masculine: važniji
feminine: važnija
neuter: važnije

In the sentence, the subject is zdrava hrana:

hrana is feminine singular, so the predicate adjective must also be feminine singular:
- važnija

So:

Zdrava hrana … je važnija…
= Healthy food … is more important …

You don’t normally say više važna for “more important”. Croatian usually builds the comparative inside the adjective itself, not with više:

važna → važnija (more important)
pametna → pametnija (smarter)
skup → skuplji (more expensive)

You can add an intensifier before the comparative:

puno / mnogo / još važnija = much / a lot / even more important

What case is sladoleda, and why is od sladoleda used to mean “than ice cream”?

Sladoleda is the genitive singular of sladoled (“ice cream”).

The preposition od governs the genitive. One very common pattern in Croatian is:

comparative adjective + od + genitive
= more X than Y

Examples:

On je viši od mene. = He is taller than me.
Ona je starija od sestre. = She is older than (her) sister.
Zdrava hrana … je važnija od sladoleda.
= Healthy food … is more important than ice cream.

So in a comparative, od is best translated as “than”, not “from”.

Could you also say važnija nego sladoled instead of važnija od sladoleda?

You can see nego used with comparisons, but in this particular structure the most natural, default pattern is:

[comparative adjective] + od + genitive
→ važnija od sladoleda

Nego is very common when:

You are comparing two whole clauses:
- Bolje je jesti zdravo nego jesti sladoled.
  It is better to eat healthy than to eat ice cream.
You use words like više, manje, radije etc.:
- Više voli voće nego sladoled.
  She likes fruit more than (she likes) ice cream.
- Radije pijem vodu nego sok.

You can hear things like:

On je viši nego ja. = He is taller than I (am).

But for learners, the safe and very natural model with adjectives is:

važniji/važnija/važnije od + genitive
→ važnija od sladoleda

What exactly does kao što je mean here, and how is it different from just kao or from poput?

In this sentence:

kao što je voće i povrće ≈ “such as fruit and vegetables”

Literally:

kao = “as / like”
što = “what / that which”
je = “is”

So kao što je… is something like “like that which is …”, but idiomatically it corresponds to English “such as …”.

Compare:

Zdrava hrana kao što je voće i povrće…
Healthy food such as fruit and vegetables…

You could also say:

Zdrava hrana, kao voće i povrće, …
Zdrava hrana, poput voća i povrća, …

Nuances:

kao što je – a very common, slightly more explicit way to introduce examples.
kao – “like / such as”, simpler, a bit more “bare”.
poput + genitive – stylistically a bit more formal/literary, but very normal:
- Zdrava hrana, poput voća i povrća, sada joj je važnija…

All three are understandable; kao što je here is perfectly natural.

Are voće and povrće singular or plural? Why don’t they look plural if they mean “fruits and vegetables”?

Both voće (“fruit”) and povrće (“vegetables”) are neuter singular mass nouns in Croatian.

They behave like singular grammatically:
- Voće je skupo. = Fruit is expensive.
- Povrće je zdravo. = Vegetables are healthy.

So in:

kao što je voće i povrće

both voće and povrće are treated as mass nouns, like English “fruit” as a category and “vegetable” as a category.

If you want clearly countable plural forms, you use different words:

plodovi (fruits, crops)
vrste voća (kinds of fruit)
povrtnice (kinds of vegetables), etc.

But voće and povrće themselves are grammatically singular.

Why is it zdrava hrana in the singular? In English we might say “healthy foods”.

Hrana means “food” as a mass noun. It is:

feminine
almost always singular (you don’t really use a normal plural form for everyday “food”)

So:

hrana je skupa = food is expensive
zdrava hrana = healthy food
brza hrana = fast food

Croatian often uses singular mass nouns where English could use a plural:

English: healthy foods
Croatian: zdrava hrana

If you want to talk about different kinds of foods, you’d usually specify it differently:

razne vrste hrane = various kinds of food
namirnice = groceries / foodstuffs

But the basic category is just hrana (singular), and adjectives agree:

zdrava hrana, nezdrava hrana, domaća hrana

What’s the difference between sada and sad? Could the sentence use sad instead?

Sada and sad both mean “now”.

sada – slightly more formal or explicit, often in writing
sad – shortened, very common in everyday speech and also in informal writing

You can freely use sad in this sentence:

Sad joj je zdrava hrana kao što je voće i povrće važnija od sladoleda.

Meaning stays the same. The choice is mostly about style and rhythm, not grammar.

How flexible is the word order, especially around sada joj je? Could we put joj or sada somewhere else?

Word order is fairly flexible, but clitics like joj and je have strong placement rules.

Key points:

Clitics must be early (roughly in second position) and usually stick together:
- Sada joj je…
- Zdrava hrana joj je…
- Voće i povrće joj je…
Natural variants of the full sentence include:
- Sada joj je zdrava hrana kao što je voće i povrće važnija od sladoleda.
- Zdrava hrana joj je sada važnija od sladoleda.
- Zdrava hrana, kao što je voće i povrće, sada joj je važnija od sladoleda.
Things that sound wrong or very odd:
- Sada je joj važnija… (clitic order is wrong)
- Sada joj važnija je… (splitting je away is very unnatural)

So you can move sada around quite freely, and you can move the big chunks (zdrava hrana, kao što je voće i povrće, od sladoleda), but joj je should stay together, near the beginning of the clause.

Should there be a comma before kao što je, like in English “Healthy food, such as fruit and vegetables, …”?

In Croatian, a comma before kao / kao što is often optional and depends on how “separate” or parenthetical you feel the phrase is.

Both of these can be seen:

Without commas (more tightly integrated):
- Zdrava hrana kao što je voće i povrće sada joj je važnija od sladoleda.
With commas (treating it as an aside or extra information):
- Zdrava hrana, kao što je voće i povrće, sada joj je važnija od sladoleda.

Style guides often say:

no comma if kao što je … is a simple comparison or necessary part of the phrase
commas if it’s more like an additional example, similar to English “by the way, for example…”

Your original version without a comma is grammatically correct and quite natural.

Why is it kao što je voće i povrće, not kao što su voće i povrće, since “fruit and vegetables” seems plural?

There are two things going on here:

Voće and povrće are mass nouns, each grammatically neuter singular. Together voće i povrće can be treated as one combined category (“fruit-and-veg”) and often takes a singular verb:
- Voće i povrće je skupo.
  Fruit and vegetables is expensive (as a category).
In the construction kao što je X, the verb je often agrees with an implied neuter subject like to / ono / što (“that which”), not directly with the list that follows. You can think of it as:
- Zdrava hrana, (to) je voće i povrće.
  Healthy food – (that) is fruit and vegetables.

Because of this, kao što je voće i povrće sounds more natural here than kao što su voće i povrće.

With clearly countable plurals, you do see kao što su:

Građevine, kao što su mostovi i tuneli, …
Buildings, such as bridges and tunnels, …

But with mass nouns like voće i povrće, the singular je is very normal and idiomatic in this pattern.