What Explains the Difference in the Way Americans and French (and Brits) Eat?

I ran across this fascinating paper entitled "Do Prices and Attributes Explain International Differences in Food Purchases" by Pierre Dubois, Rachel Griffith, and Aviv Nevo that is forthcoming in the American Economic Review (an earlier version of the paper is here; a gated forthcoming version can be found by searching here).

According to the paper, French consumers eat about 1777 calories every day.  Americans, by contrast, eat 2103 calories (UK falls in the middle at 1929).  The differences don't end there.  49% of our calories come from carbs; but for the French its only 38%.  A much larger share of French calories comes from fat than those of us in the US (46% vs. 37%).  When one digs a little deeper - it becomes clear why: The French eat more dairy and oils than Americans.

Now, here is the key question which Dubois and colleagues ask.  Why do people in the US, UK, and France eat so differently?   

The authors consider three possible explanations: 

1. differences in prices across countries,
2. differences in the food options available (and nutrient content of foods) across countries, or 
3. differences in what people like to eat across countries (i.e., differences in preferences).

Their data reveals a number of interesting findings.  For example, even though Americans eat more calories than the French, we spend less money doing so ($426/quarter vs. $466/quarter).  Part of the explanation is that food prices are generally higher in the France than the US, but interestingly, it isn't across the board in the ways one might expect.  Fruit and Veggie prices are similar in the US and France.  But, the prices for dairy, meats, oils, and prepared foods are 31%, 76%,  16%, and 18% lower in the US than France.  Interestingly, sweeteners and drinks are priced 39% and 43% higher in the US than in France.  So, one thing becomes apparent: the French are eating more dairy and oils than we are in spite spite of the higher prices.  They must either really like to eat those foods or there must be more of those kinds of foods in France to choose from (they also eat about the same amount of meat as we do - as a share of calories - despite meats being 76% more expensive it France).   

Ultimately,  Dubois and colleagues find that all the above factors matter.  The author's models predict that Americans consume an average of 2212 calories each day (slightly more than the "raw mean").  Then, the authors make some interesting projections.  They calculate that Americans would:

• eat 2158 calories if we were exposed to the same food options (or product attributes) as the French
• eat 1890 calories if we faced the same food prices as the French
• eat 1841 calories if we faced the same food options and prices as the French

The authors conclude:

The estimates allow us to simulate counterfactual quantities purchased by households with preferences from one country but facing prices and product attributes from another country. We use the simulations to learn about the relative importance of preferences versus the economic environment. We find that, the average US household when faced with French prices and product attributes, will purchase substantially fewer calories, bringing the level close to that of the average French household when faced with the same environment. However, the composition of these calories would differ. The simulated change is mostly due to price differences. In contrast, when we simulate the average US household’s food basket with UK product attributes this has a substantial impact on reducing calories, whereas changing relative prices in fact increases calories. From these findings we conclude that the economic environment makes a substantial difference on the consumption basket. However, in general, it is the interaction of preference, prices and attributes that explains the cross country differences.

I find these results interesting because there are many Americans who seems to subscribe to a view that the French have some kind of moral superiority when it comes to food and weight.  I read these results to say that the French are, in large part, just responding to the economic incentives they face.  And while they consume fewer calories than we do, it isn't all that clear they're better off given that they must pay more for many of the foods they desire than do Americans. 

I'm in Italy for the next two weeks. I wonder what I'll eat differently due to differences in food prices and availability?

Is making beef like making beer?

That is the claim in this piece at CNN by the Director of New Harvest, which aims to make lab-raised meat. 

The production of beer requires living organisms -- yeast -- and nourishment for those organisms -- grain. How these elements come together with others to make beer is straightforward in theory, and nuanced in practice. The products are varied and distinct.

Cultured meat production is extremely similar. Explained simply, all that is required is a cell line and nourishment for those cells. How the cells are grown, and under what conditions, are adjustable. The potential variety of materials and processes will allow cultured meat to take on many distinctly unique forms, flavors and textures.

I really liked the following two paragraphs about technology in food:

It's a new way of thinking because this is food science by the public, for the public. It prompts a widespread conversation about a food technology years in advance of its market release rather than years afterward. It's a new way of thinking because it's a technology largely driven by societal demand and people have pushed this forward, as donors to a cause.

The biggest reasons why cultured meat hasn't progressed further is a lack of funding and a lack of creative understanding. We're not used to food technology being a positive solution. We're not used to food development being nonprofit. And we're not used to a nonprofit group generally categorized as an animal rights/environmentalist group requiring a cancer research-scale budget. But we're learning.

McDouble: The Cheapest, Most Nutritious Food in Human History?

That provocative claim was originally made bay a commentor at the Freakonomics blog. Freakonomics co-author, Stephen Dubner, turned the claim into an interesting podcast for NPR. Then Kyle Smith wrote an editorial on the topic for the New York Post celebrating the McDouble.  The Wall Street Journal picked up the story, and predictably, a number of outlets offered a counter-response.  It seems the story has gone viral.

If you care to hear my thoughts on the subject, I had to opportunity to briefly expound on it a bit this morning on Fox and Friends.  

The one thing I didn't say is that it is not necessarily true that more nutritious food is always more expensive.  The USDA published a report on this issue a few months ago. Basically, it comes down to how you measure it.  If you measure the cost of nutrition as the price per calorie, then lettuce is going to look really expensive because lettuce doesn't provide many calories.  But, if you measure the cost as the price per gram (or pound), then fruits and veggies don't look so costly compared to other foods.        

Some people point out that it is more expensive to order a salad than a McDouble at McDonald's.  Doesn't that prove it is more expensive to eat healthy?  Well, first, a McDonald's salad is not necessarily better for you.  It's important to actually look at the nutritional content of salads at McDonald's; you can easily eat more calories by ordering a salad - especially if you add chicken or use salad dressing.  But, even if the salad is more nutritious, it is likely more expensive because there is more volume to the salad than the burger (i.e., there are more oz in the serving of salad than burger) so you're getting more with the salad; also, there is the extra storage costs required with the bulkier packaging, not to mention the costs associated with keeping salads fresh and dealing with spoilage and waste.   

Finally, on this point, Adam Drewnowski - who was done a lot of research on this topic - sent me this recently published paper, where he calculated the cost of various fruits and veggies according to a nutrient score.  I pulled out the second figure from the paper and reproduced it below.  If I'm not mistaken, it looks like there is a positive correlation here: the higher the nutrient score, the more affordable the food is. 

One take-away from the figure: if you want inexpensive nutrients, eat sweet potatoes!

Role of technology in the global economic importance and viability of animal protein production

That mouthful is the name of an article I wrote for the journal Animal Frontiers.     

Here are a few excerpts: 

Walk in almost any Department of Animal Science in the U.S. and one is likely to find a few black and white photos of stern, cowboy-hat wearing animal husbandry students from the early part of the last century. The remarkable thing about those photos is not the now unfashionable clothes but rather the champion cattle the students were proudly displaying for posterity. Today, one can scarcely find a bovine as fat and squatty as those that were once so esteemed. Pondering the difference between the prized cattle in those black and white photos and almost any old steer in a modern feedlot provides a stark illustration of the role of technology in shaping animal production over the past century

and

The direst of the Malthusian predictions have failed to materialize. Although the population of the world has grown dramatically over the past three centuries (and is expected to grow further still), the rate of growth has slowed, and in some developed countries has even begun to fall. While people of Malthus’s day probably could not have envisioned modern birth control methods, the most pessimistic interpreters of Malthus’s model almost certainly underestimated the impacts of productivity-increasing technological change.

I used a number of approaches to calculate the economic value of the productivity gains that have occurred in meat production in the past 40 years.  Here are the results of one approach applied to beef cattle:

if we applied the same genetics and technology used in 1970 to a cow herd the size of the one at present, we would expect to experience only $24.8 billion in farm value produced. The remaining $37.16 - $24.80 = $12.36 billion in value actually observed (or about 33% of current total value) is a result of factors (e.g., genetics, technology) that gave rise to improved productivity

Country of Origin Labeling for Meat

About a decade ago, the US Congress passed mandatory country of origin labeling for a variety of food products including beef and pork.  At the time, we did some research on the costs of the law and the demand responses that would be required to offset those costs.  

In the intervening years, the law was implemented, the US was taken to court by Canada and Mexico, and the US labeling law was deemed to be an illegal trade barrier by the World Trade Organization (WTO).  However, rather than dropping the law altogether, lawmakers have doubled down and made them even more onerous and costly in an attempt to comply with the WTO ruling (you can read the current regs here).    ​

There is a key disconnect that is driving much of this debate.  When you ask people on surveys if they want to know the origin of their meat products, almost all say "yes."   But, when you look at the data on whether people read origin labels or whether demand for meat has been affected by the origin laws, a much different story emerges.   ​

Given that backdrop, I found the recent editorial by the president of the National Cattlemans Beef Association interesting (the Kansas Study to which he refers is here, and as you can see, I was a co-author on that publication)​.  Here is an excerpt:

It seems as if the first thing that is said whenever COOL is brought up is, “I am proud of the cattle my family raises,” and that is absolutely correct. I too am very proud of my family’s operation and all the work my wife and I, with our children and grandchildren, do to produce great beef. But a mandatory labeling program run by the federal government is not the way I want to showcase my product and add value. Labeling programs can work - just look at Certified Angus Beef or Safeway’s “Rancher’s Reserve.” These are marketing programs that are run by individuals with a specific interest and that is to promote and sell more beef to put on dinner tables across America. That is why these programs are successful. Additionally there is a tremendous amount of time and effort that goes into marketing these programs to the consumer.. But slapping on a label that says where this product was born, raised and slaughtered does not achieve the same result. In fact, a study by Kansas State University conducted in November of 2012 titled Mandatory County of Origin Labeling: Consumer Demand Impact made some key findings on this subject. The study found that mere country-of-origin information has not impacted consumer demand for beef or other covered products, and in fact, that many consumers are unaware labeling information exists. This is the issue with allowing the federal government to mandate a marketing program - it is not in their wheelhouse. Marketing at its very core relies on the distinction of one product from another. Neither USDA, nor any other government agency, can make that distinction based on origin labeling.