Blog

Food Demand Survey (FooDS) - March 2016

The March 2016 edition of the Food Demand Survey is out.

Some results from the regular tracking portion of the survey:

  • Willingness to pay for steak and chicken breast was up; willingness to pay for pork chops and ham was down
  • Consumers expectations for beef and pork price increases are markedly lower than was the case a year ago
  • There was an increase in awareness and concern for animal welfare issues this month, particularly battery cages; E. coli was less visible in the news this month and less of a concern this month compared to last.
  •  

A few new ad hoc questions were added this month.  

First, all respondents were asked the question, “Compared to five years ago, would you say you are spending more or less time engaged in the following activities during a typical day?”  Individuals were presented with seven categories ranging from about 45 minutes less to about 45 minutes more.  Overall, respondents reported spending more time shopping for food and eating at home.  About the same amount of time reported being spent on cleaning dishes and on cooking.  Slightly less time was reported spent watching TV and reading about food.  Less time was reportedly spent eating away from home.

Second, one group of respondents was directly asked three questions for which there might be some sensitivity regarding the answer or where there might be social pressure to respond in particular ways.  The direct questions were: 1) “Last week did you buy organic food?”, “Last week, did you use a SNAP EBT card?”, and “Last week, did you receive food assistance from a charitable organization like a food pantry, free community meal, or some other free grocery program?”

As the following figure shows, when directly asked, the percent of respondents affirmatively answering these questions was 43%, 13%, and 7% respectively.  

 

The other groups of respondents were asked these questions in an indirect fashion.  In particular, we used an approach called a “list experiment”, which has been used in political polling for years.  The approach asks people to indicate HOW MANY of a list of items relate to the respondent (not which one).  This question is asked to a control group, and then a treatment group receives the exact same list plus one additional sensitive (or controversial) issue.  By comparing how many items the respondent indicates in the treatment relative to the control, one can back out the aggregate percent of respondents to whom the additional issue applies.  The essence of the approach is that people don’t have to actually tell you whether each issue corresponds to them, and thus it removes the potential for social desirability influencing respondents.

In the control group, respondents were asked, “Below are three activities; How many of the following things did you do last week?   Went to a movie, Ate spaghetti,  Bought toothpaste.” The treatment groups were the same except we added an additional fourth item, either “bought organic food”, “used a SNAP EBT card” or “Receive food assistance from a charitable organization like a food pantry, free community meal, or some other free grocery program?”   

As the figure shows, the degree of affirmation inferred from the indirect question was lower for all three issues, particularly for organic food.  The result suggests that respondents might face social pressure to indicate more support for organic food than they actually have, as the percent who said they purchased organic fell from 43% to just 11%.  However, the results related to SNAP and charitable assistance are opposite of what was expected in that one might expect respondents to under-report these activities when directly asked if in fact respondents were remiss to reveal such information.

Grist Review

Over at Grist.com, Nathanael Johnson reviews my forthcoming book, Unnaturally Delicious, alongside another new book by Simran Sethi Bread Wine Chocolate: The Slow Loss of The Food We Love.  I like how he contrasts the competing visions about the future of food that Sethi and I offer.

I was pleased to see that Johnson got one of my take-home messages:

“Lusk, for his part, is right in pointing out that our food system keeps improving. The food system may be broken, but it’s always been broken and it’s better now than any time in the past.”

Here's how Johnson wraps up his reviews: 

“I think there’s a way to reconcile these two perspectives. The progress that Lusk celebrates has given much of humanity the comfort and wealth to demand the diversity Sethi yearns for. In fact, Sethi’s book is full of evidence that there’s already a renaissance in diversity underway. She makes her way through a 10-acre vineyard growing rare grapes, visits with the makers of artisan chocolates ($6 a bar — even $18 a bar), and drops in on craft brewers reveling in the ever-growing market for unique flavors.

Every renaissance scuffles with stability and tradition. When Sethi asks one custodian of grape diversity why we don’t see vintners growing different types of vines, he tells her, “Everyone wants to drink a 300-year-old French variety with a 300-year-old history, but it’s impossible for a modern wine grape breeder to create a brand-new 300-year-old variety.”

It seems to me that the way to a more diverse, equitable, and delicious food system doesn’t wind back into traditionalism but leads us forward into the unknown. That’s a little scary. But, like many scary things, it’s also tremendously exciting.”

100 year old fat tax

Thanks to David Allison and his colleagues' weekly email summarizing the latest research on obesity, I ran across this policy proposal in the British Medical Journal from 1904.  If you can't read the fine print, it says, in part, "A superfluity of fat, which is mostly the result of luxurious living, may therefore not unfairly be regarding as a fitting object of taxation."  You're off the hook if you weigh less than 135 lbs.  

Effective Altruism and the Meat Eater Problem

A few days ago I received an email from Scott Weathers who pointed me to a post he wrote on the Effective Altruism Form.  He brought my attention to a debate in the effective altruist community.  In particular, what are the full consequences of various human development projects on the well-being of people AND animals?  

For background, it might be useful to first define effective altruism, which according to Wikipedia, is: 

“a philosophy and social movement that applies evidence and reason to determine the most effective ways to improve the world. Effective altruists aim to consider all causes and actions, and then act in the way that brings about the greatest positive impact”

So, effective altruists aren't content to simply engage in activities that make them feel good - they want to look at the actual consequences.

Here's the issue.  Altruists aim to increase the well-being of people in developing countries.  But, development economist have long known that when poor people in developing countries begin to earn a bit more money, they tend to increase consumption of meat and other animal products.  Increasing demand for animal products leads to more animals.  Is it possible that the net effect of increasing the poors' wellbeing on total "happiness" (animals and human) is negative?  Scott put the "meat eater problem" as follows:  

“Many GiveWell charity recommendations, particularly the Against Malaria Foundation, could be affected by this consideration – if saving human lives means increasing suffering for a large number of animals killed for meat consumption, should we support human health interventions at all?”

Scott makes a number of good counter arguments to this concern in his post.  I too have a hard time getting overly worried about this "meat eater" problem.  Here are some of the first things that come to mind.

  • The impact isn't anywhere close to 1 to 1.  Even in a heavy meat eating country like the US, per-capita consumption of beef and pork are around 55 and 50 lbs/person/year.  One US steer is yields around 500-600 lbs of edible meat; one hog yields about 125 lbs of edible muscle.  So, if a person goes from zero beef and pork consumption to the (high) US average, they're only eating about 55/550=0.10 cows a year and 50/125=0.4 pigs a year. It would take (550/55)=10 years for this person to eat the equivalent of a whole steer and (125/20) = 2.5 years for the person to eat the equivalent of one whole hog.  Stated differently, are you ok helping 10 desperately poor people improve their lot in life (and eat a bit better too) even if it meant the suffering of 1 cow?  
  • Even the 10:1 ratio (or 2.5:1 ratio for hogs) dramatically overstates the problem. This is because consumption in the developing world isn't likely to increase anywhere close to that in the US.  Per-capita consumption of beef in sub-Saharan Africa is only about 6.82 lbs/person/year.   Thus, 1 US cow can feed 550/6.82=80.6 Africans for a year.  One review of the literature suggests that a 1% increase in the income of consumers in low income countries increases quantity demanded for meat and dairy by about 0.8% (i.e., the income elasticity of demand for meat is 0.8).  If per-capita GDP in sub-Saharan African were able to miraculously double (from $1,638/person to $3,276) for a 100% increase, we'd increase meat demand by 80%.  So, per-capita consumption would increase from 6.82lbs/person/year to 6.82*1.8=12.276 lbs/person/year.  Now 1 US cow would only feed 550/12.27=44.8 Africans for a year.  Each African goes from consuming 0.0124  to 0.0222 cows/year.  Pulling it all together, DOUBLING the per-capita income of the 973 million people who live in Sub-Saharan Africa, would require (by these back of the envelope calculations, which you can check for homework) about 9.65 million more cows.  So, what we want to compare is the extra happiness of 973 million Africans who have doubled their income and who are now eating 80% more meat to the welfare of an extra 9.65 million cows (the ratio of cows affected to humans affected is 0.01 to 1).  
  • One might say: well an African cow (or pig or sheep) doesn't provide as much meat as a US cow (or pig or sheep), so the ratios above are way off.  Fair enough.  But, what's the implication?  I say, it means we should invest in research (or donate to research organizations) that increase the productivity of animals in Africa.  Indeed, one counter-intuitive insight is that intensive animal agriculture, because it is so much more efficient, may be more "ethical" because it requires many fewer animals to meet consumer demand.
  • We don't want to compare numbers of people affected to numbers of animals affected, we want to compare units of "happiness" or "suffering".  Economists have long been uncomfortable with making such inter-personal utility comparisons, but presumably an effective altruist has to make such calculations in some form or fashion.  Even if we buy the arguments by philosophers like Peter Singer that all units of suffering should receive equal consideration regardless of the source (cow or human), we have to keep in mind that "suffering" relates not just to the ability to feel pain but the ability to contemplate pain, infer intention and meaning from the pain, anticipate future pain, etc., and thus my assessment is that it would take a lot more to create an equivalent "unit" of suffering from a cow than a human.
  • Why the presumption of suffering?  Are all animals better off dead than alive?  I highly doubt it.  In fact, if increased demand for meat brings more animals into the world that are better off alive than dead, then total happiness increases.  As we've argued elsewhere, there are good reasons to believe most US beef cows lead relatively high quality lives.  See here for my armchair philosophizing on the ethics of eating meat.
  • As I discuss in a chapter of my forthcoming book, Unnaturally Delicious, it is now possible to grow meat in a lab.  Lab grown meat doesn't suffer because it isn't connected to a brain. 
  • If you're concerned that giving to human charity adversely affects animals, then one possible solution is a market (like the one I've proposed) where you can buy "animal well being unit" offsets.