Who Will Cover the Costs of California's Prop 37?

Friday Forbes.com published an article written by Nicholas Kalaitzandonakes and me.  Here  are a couple key paragraphs:

Lower income households across the United States spend a larger portion of their income on food than higher income households.  Lower income households also spend most of these dollars for food at home. High income individuals spend more at restaurants and eateries.  Similar trends exist for older relative to younger consumers.

And

Proposition 37 calls for mandatory GMO labeling of foods bought at the grocery store and consumed at home, but does not require the same for foods consumed in restaurants, cafeterias, catering, schools, and the like.  It also excludes all organic foods from mandatory GMO labeling irrespective of where they are consumed and of their GMO content.

Given these rules and exclusions, younger and more affluent consumers who spend more on organics and on food away from home would be less affected by Proposition 37. Poorer and older consumers could instead be called to foot the bulk of the bill implied by the Proposition while spending a larger portion of their limited income in doing so.

David Zilberman at UC Berkeley put out a blog post the same day covering some of the same themes.

Effects of FoodService Establishments and Information on Obesity

A recent paper by Alessandro Bonanno and Stephan Goetz in the International Food and Agribusiness Management Review looks at the relationship between food store density, nutrition education, and obesity.

Here is the issue:

Understanding the role of the food environment vs. nutrition education in expanding the share of adult population engaging in healthy eating habits has clear policy implications and is relevant for the agribusiness sector as a whole.  Food retailers and food service companies, as well as many food manufacturers, are under scrutiny for their potential roles in shaping diets and in contributing to the obesity epidemic. This study seeks to provide additional evidence on whether policies aimed at regulating the food environment (i.e., the location of food retailers and restaurants) are likely to achieve the intended goals

They find:

no evidence of a negative  causal relationship between the density of food-service establishments and the state-level incidence of adult healthy eating (similar to Collins and Baker, 2009, who find no “Granger causality” on obesity incidence using nationwide data), suggesting that policies aiming to restrict access to these outlets may have little impact on improving healthy diets. 

And:

Our results indicate that expenditures on nutrition education programs can improve eating habits and, indirectly, curb the incidence of adult obesity.  However, increases in nutrition education efforts would have to be substantial. . . . our results indicate that quadrupling average expenditure on nutrition education . . . could reduce adult obesity by 0.8%; the feasibility of such a large spending increase as a policy tool is unlikely

It's Gonna Get a Lot Harder to Eat Ethically

NPR ran a story a couple days ago on a move to recognize "plant rights" in addition to "animal rights."  I was a little surprised by some of the claims in the story:

After all, plants can sometimes exhibit humanlike behavior. . . . Some plants respond well to music. Some "smell" other plants. Still others seem to shrink away when touched.. . . . 

Plants display remedial types of memory and possess "anoetic consciousness" — the ability of an organism to sense and to react to stimulation . . . 

Some plants (such as chili peppers) may be able to "hear" other plants (such as sweet fennel). "We know that plants recognize what is growing next to them, . . . Plants can warn other plants of a predator by releasing a chemical, and the warned plants can release chemicals to make themselves unpalatable to the predator.

For those who are concerned about the harms caused by their diet, these sorts of findings aren't good news.  What's left to eat?  Water?

My TEDx Talk

Tomorrow afternoon I'm slated to give a talk at the Oklahoma State University TEDx event.  My understanding is that tickets are sold out.  However, the talks will be streamed live on streamed live on OState.tv.  My talk on the "Future of Food" should be on at about 5pm.  I'll put up a post to the video when it becomes available.

Support for Prop 37 Dips Below 50%

According to the results of the latest poll by the California Business Roundtable and Pepperdine University, support for the GMO mandatory labeling dipped below 50% for the first time.

This graph from their consecutive polls is remarkable:

I'm not sure I've ever seen so dramatic a change in support for an issue in so short a period of time.  

I should note that the high level of support we found in our study conducted in late September is not inconsistent with the above polls once undecideds are factored in.  

My understanding is that a new wave of "YES 37" commercials has hit the airwaves in recent days.  Hard to know what effect they'll have but our research suggested that positive ads were not nearly as effective as negative.    

It will be interesting to see how it turns out on November 6.  I am frankly shocked it is so close.