Year End Review 2015

Thanks for reading my meandering thoughts on this blog.  It's been a great year in 2015.  There were about 150 posts over the past year.  That's a little under three posts a week, and it's down about 30% from last year.  The drop can be explained by two things: 1) I focused quite a bit on writing my new book, Unnaturally Delicious, out on March 22 2016, and 2) Twitter has emerged as a better spot for pithy comments or for forwarding short information.

The good news is that the posts on this site have received around 98,000 page views over the last year, which is up about 88% from 2014.   

The top 15 most accessed posts this year have been:

1. Food Demand Survey (FooDS) - January 2015 (this issue contained the first results on consumer preferences for DNA labels; no other post was even close in terms of page views)

2. DNA labels

3.  Why are Beef Prices so High? (originally posted in 2014)

4. Ted Talks and GMOs (originally posed in 2013)

5.  The Organic Food Subsidy Myth (originally posted in 2012)

6.  Organic vs. Conventional Crop Yields (originally posted in 2014)

7.  How to Remove Gluten from Bread

8.  How Will Avian Influenza (Bird Flu) Affect Egg and Turkey Prices?

9. Might Consumers Interpret Labels as A Warning Label? from (2014)

10.  Who are the Vegetarians (from 2014)

11.  Taleb on GMOs

12.  Is the Growth in Agricultural Productivity Slowing?

13.  Do People Really Want to Express and Opinion on GMO Labeling?

14.  Red Meat and Cancer

15.  Why Are Beef and Pork Prices so High? (from 2014)

What is a GMO anyway?

Yesterday on Twitter, Nathanael Johnson asked a good question, and got lot of good answers.

@WyoWeeds @SavorTooth @mem_somerville How about doubled haploid breeding, by pollinating wheat w corn pollen to initiate haploidy, then 1/2

— Benjamin Edge (@edgeben) December 16, 2015

I couldn't figure out how to embed the whole Twitter conversation but there were scores of interesting responses.  The discussion is related to another important one: A GMO isn't a single thing, it's many, many possible things.  But, Nathanael's question is deeper, and philosophical.  Is this thing we've called "GMO" something that's only in our heads or is it something that exists independent of our minds.  Another way to look at it: if a Martian were to travel to earth and look at what's our dinner plate and is growing on our farm fields, could they - without knowledge of our history or social baggage - identify a class of things called "GMO" that would match up with the class of things we call a "GMO"?

Lettuce a bigger environmental threat than beef?

On Monday a press release began making the rounds claiming that "Vegetarian and 'healthy' diets are more harmful to the environment" and the story has generated provocative headlines like, "Lettuce three times worse than bacon for the environment."  The results are based on this paper published in Environment Systems and Decisions by Michelle Tom , Paul Fischbeck, and Chris Hendrickson.

Here's a portion of the abstract:

“This article measures the changes in energy use, blue water footprint, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with shifting from current US food consumption patterns to three dietary scenarios, which are based, in part, on the 2010 USDA Dietary Guidelines . . . . This study finds that shifting from the current US diet to dietary Scenario 1 [same mix of foods but fewer calories] decreases energy use, blue water footprint, and GHG emissions by around 9%, while shifting to dietary Scenario 2 [holding calories consumed constant but shifting away from meat to fruit and veg] increases energy use by 43%, blue water footprint by 16%, and GHG emissions by 11 %. Shifting to dietary Scenario 3, which accounts for both reduced Caloric intake and a shift to the USDA recommended food mix, increases energy use by 38 %, blue water footprint by 10 %, and GHG emissions by 6 %. These perhaps counterintuitive results are primarily due to USDA recommendations for greater Caloric intake of fruits, vegetables, dairy, and fish/seafood, which have relatively high resource use and emissions per Calorie.”

So, what's going on here?  Didn't the authors of the latest (proposed) Nutritional Guidelines suggest less meat eating due to "sustainability" concerns?  Haven't we repeatedly read things like this quote from a story in Time in  2008? 

“It’s true that giving up that average 176 lb. of meat a year is one of the greenest lifestyle changes you can make as an individual. ”

A few comments about this latest study and how it relates to the "received wisdom."

First, meat eating often looks bad in aggregate because the industry is so big.  In the US, we eat a lot of meat.  As a group, animal products probably represent the largest share of food expenditures of any food category.  As a result, we need to put the outcomes on some kind of units where foods can be compared on an even playing field.  There are a lot of options: lbs of food produced, dollars spent, acres used, or as the current study uses, calories.  As I've discussed before:

“. . . meat is relatively (relative to many fruits and vegetables) inexpensive on a per calorie or per gram of protein basis, although meat looks more expensive when placed on a per pound basis. If you want really inexpensive calories eat vegetable oil or crackers or sugar; if you want real expensive calories, eat zucchini or lettuce or tomatoes.”

For what it's worth, this discussion is related to the debate on whether eating healthy is more or less expensive.  As it turns out: the answer depends how you measure it ($/lb or $/calorie) .

Second, it is important to think on the margin, or think in terms of changes.  Meat is bad.  Compared to what?  As I discussed in the Food Police,  many fruits and vegetables are big users of water and pesticides.  So, if we eat less meat, what will we eat more of instead, and what are the impacts of the items we switch to?  This recent study produces results that look a bit different because it looks not just at aggregates but at marginal changes.  

Third, as this study makes clear, "the environment" is not a single thing.  It is multidimensional.  Here's a graph from the paper.

Some foods are better water users, others worse in terms of GHS emission, others produce more calories/acre and spare more land, and so on.  Very rarely are there "have your cake and eat it too" moments, and there are typically tough tradeoffs between health, environment, and taste (and even tradeoffs within each of those categories).  One problem with studies like this is that they don't count the consumer welfare cost from eating a different mix of foods or different number of calories from what they normally consume, so we don't have any sense for the tradeoff between taste and cost on the one hand and health and the environment on the other.  

The last comment is that it's tough for me to evaluate the "quality" of this paper, and one should probably be a bit careful of suffering from confirmation bias.  A lot of the assumptions driving the result actually come from other papers and analyses.  Moreover, the work was published in a relatively new journal (started in 2012) and I know nothing about it. [update: a follower on Twitter informed me that the journal has been around since the 1980's but recently changed its name]  However, it does appear that the authors' results are similar to those in another paper that the Nutritional Guidelines Committee actually discussed in their report.  The committee writes: 

“a report from Heller and Keoleian suggests that an isocaloric shift from the average U.S. diet (at current U.S. per capita intake of 2,534 kcals/day from Loss-Adjusted Food Availability (LAFA) data) to a pattern that adheres to the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans would result in a 12 percent increase in diet-related GHG emissions. This result was modified, however, by their finding that if Americans consumed the recommended pattern within the recommended calorie intake level of 2,000 kcal/day, there would be a 1 percent decrease in GHG emissions.”

But, of course, people don't just follow the guidelines to a tee.  That's one reason why these sorts of guidelines and recommendations should consider consumers' behavioral responses to the policies in question.

Food Demand Survey (FooDS) - December 2015

The December 2015 edition of the Food Demand Survey (FooDS) is now out.

Some observations from the regular tracking questions:

• Compared to last month willingness-to-pay for all products, particularly beef products, was up.
• There was a sizable drop in the proportion of respondents who say they plan to eat out more in the next two weeks.
• There was again a big spike in awareness and concern for E. Coli and Salmonella, likely as a result of the publicity surrounding the Chipotle outbreaks,
• There was a large increase in visibility of GMOs in the news in the past two weeks.
• The fraction of respondents who said they suffered from food poisoning doubled compared to last month.

Three new ad-hoc questions were added this month.

The first set of questions dealt with consumers perceptions of different animal welfare labels. Respondents were asked: “Which of the following labels, if seen on a meat or animal product in a grocery store, do you think would indicate and assure the highest and lowest levels of farm animal welfare?”

Participants were then shown images of nine different labels (randomly ordered across surveys) and were asked to click three labels and move them to a box indicating the highest level of animal welfare and then click three of the labels and move them to a box indicating the lowest level of animal welfare.

Here's what we found.

More than half the respondents put the following three labels in the highest welfare category: Certified Humane, Animal Welfare Approved, and American Humane Certified. Two labels, 100% natural and non-GMO verified had nothing to do with animal welfare and they were generally ranked neither high nor low. The largest percentage of respondents placed the Tyson brand label in the lowest animal welfare category, but it had more “highest welfare” category placements than Global Animal Partnership or Food Alliance Certified. The Global Animal Partnership label (which showed a Step 4 rating) was most likely to not be placed in either
the the highest or lowest welfare categories.

The next set of questions were added to investigate issues related to consumer aversion/acceptance of GMOs and perceptions of corporate involvement and control.  The questions came about as a result of a Q&A after a talk I game in Amsterdam last month at the Conference on Coexistence between Genetically Modified (GM) and non-GM based Agricultural Supply Chains.  In particular, Norbert Wilson from Auburn followed up and helped devise the following questions.  

We first asked, “How much would you support or oppose a genetically engineered food or crop (aka “GMOs”) created by the following organizations?” Then, fourteen different entities were listed (in random order across respondents), some of which were specific company names and others that were generic entities.  Respondents replied on a 1 to 5 scale ranging from strongly oppose to strongly support.

GMOs from a chemical company, Monsanto, and a pharmaceutical company were the were least supported. GMOs from a non-profit scientific organization, a university, and the USDA were most supported. For the latter two categories the percentage of respondents supporting equaled or exceeded those opposing. 

Finally, the last question asked, “Of all the possible benefits that arise from the genetically engineered (or “GMO”) food and crops currently being produced, what percent of the benefits do you believe go to the following entities?” Eight different groups were listed (in random order), and respondents had to allocate 100 points across the groups.

Respondents thought seed, chemical and farm input suppliers received the largest share of the benefits (at 17.7%) followed by governments and food processors (each at about 15%). Farmers were next at almost 14%. At the bottom were consumers (10.6%) and universities (8.7%). 

Who consumers think benefits from GMOs appears to have some relationship with concerns and acceptance of GMOs.  Recall, one of our standard questions asked every month is how concerned that GMOs pose a food safety risk in the next two weeks.  When we calculate correlations between GMO concern and the distribution of benefits from above, there are some statistically significant correlations.  The larger the perceived benefits to consumers and farmers, the lower the perceived concern about eating GMOs.    

Similarly, the correlations between the average level of support for GMOS made from the 14 entities indicated above and perceptions of who benefits are shown in the following table.  People who think universities and consumers benefit more from GMOs are more likely to support GMOs.  By contrast, people who think seed, chemical, and farm input suppliers and governments benefit more are less likely to support GMOs.

On the Chipotle Food Safety Outbreaks

Much has been written in the past couple weeks about the foodborne illnesses contracted by Chipotle customers.  I've been a bit reluctant to weight in because, at least in some social media circles, there seemed to be some pleasure taken in Chipotle's misfortune.  From my perspective, however, I don't want to delight in someone else's misfortune (particularly some unsuspecting food consumer's foodborne illness) even if I've previously been critical of the vendor's marketing practices.   What I will say is that Chipotle engaged in a variety of marketing practices  (e.g., going non-GMO, no hormone, etc.) the best science suggests have no material impact on food safety, and yet the moves were likely aimed (at least in some part) to increase the perception (rather than the reality) of food safety.  

Marketing aside, there is a real trade-off to be made between selling "clean", fresh, food sourced from small-local vendors and food safety.  There are likely some taste benefits with fresh, unfrozen food and there is nothing inherently wrong with being willing to pay a bit more for wares from smaller more local providers.  But, choosing these options may make ensuring food safety a bit more challenging.  

That's the message I tried to communicate to the reporter Kimberly Leonard for this piece in US News & World Report.  She quoted me as saying:

““If you want to make products fresh, that means you’re not going to use a preservative or it’s going to be unprocessed,” says Jayson Lusk, president-elect for the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, who has been critical of Chipotle’s marketing practices. “It does provide a real tradeoff in terms of providing a safe product for the consumer.””

and

“Lusk says his research has shown that the increase in demand for all-natural, so-called “clean” food, is a “real challenge to food safety.”

“We tend to have this idea that small is clean and safe – it could be true but it’s not necessarily true,” Lusk says. “You’ll have more food waste and it will be more expensive, and your food safety is more of a challenge. … It’s just a trade off they make.””

I touched on this same topic for a chapter on technological improvements related to food safety I wrote for my forthcoming book, Unnaturally Delicious: 

“The bigger problem, however, is what happens to the safety of food when seemingly unnatural ingredients are not used. Keeping food safe without using chemical additives is a big challenge for food manufacturers and retailers. Consumers are increasingly demanding fresher, more natural, “clean” food. Yet, as one food safety expert told me, “It’s a tremendous strain on the food-producing industry. If you take away growth inhibitors, what do you do?” One executive of a large food retailer remarked, “As consumers are asking for fresh and more natural food, we have to take out ingredients and preservatives, which makes food less safe.” Fresh foods might have taste advantages, but they also tend to have shorter shelf lives, increasing the likelihood of earlier spoilage and food waste. Moreover, research and development costs involved in reformulating preservatives to increase the perception of naturalness are passed on to the consumer in the form of higher food prices, even when the preservatives’ underlying chemical properties have not changed.”

Here's another portion of the book related to a discussion I had with Frank Yiannas, the VP of food safety for Walmart (written well before news of the Chipotle outbreaks emerged):

“I started by asking about the size of Walmart. More than 120 million Americans (more than a third of the U.S. population) shop at Walmart every week. Does the sheer scale of the operation make the U.S. food system riskier? If Walmart has an outbreak, multitudes would be sickened. Yiannas replied: “One out of every four dollars spent on food are spent at a Walmart. We can make a big difference. Large organizations like Walmart result in a safer food system.” He points out that when Walmart makes a change, it affects the whole system. Sure, smaller companies might have outbreaks that affect fewer people, but when lots of small companies are having lots of small outbreaks, the problem is more widespread. A downside to small companies, said Yiannas, is that they can’t easily invest in improving the system as a whole. While Walmart often attracts negative attention because of its size and scale (e.g., Do they pay workers fairly? Do they hurt local mom-and-pop busineses?), at least in the world of food safety, their size has significant benefits for its customers, and as I’ll soon discuss, even for non-customers.”