The Food Movement that Failed

The Wall Street Journal will publish an op-ed I wrote in tomorrow's paper (it is already up online).  

Here are some snippets:

Before the election, author Michael Pollan wrote in the New York Times Magazine that “One of the more interesting things we will learn on Nov. 6 is whether or not there is a ‘food movement’ in America worthy of the name—that is, an organized force in our politics capable of demanding change in the food system.” By Mr. Pollan’s own standard, we must conclude that there is no viable food movement worth its sea salt. Right?

That depends on which food movement we are talking about. There is the food movement that has caught fire over the past decade—encouraging consumers to use the power of their wallets to prompt farmers and retailers to grow and sell better-tasting, more-nutritious produce. It is the movement that has led to a surge in farmers markets, an explosion of niche producers of jams and salsas in exotic flavors, the rise of craft brewers in strip malls and backyard garages all across the U.S. Wal-Mart is now the country’s largest seller of organic produce. That food movement is alive and well.

So, what was the food movement that failed earlier this month? The one that wants the coercive power of the state to strong-arm Americans into eating fashionably. It is the movement that refuses to acknowledge the hard work of the vast majority of American farmers—Urvashi Rangan of the Consumers Union says that farmers’ fertilizers “rape the soil”—simply because they cannot make a living selling the stuff that the food elite think we all should eat. It is a movement that uses scare tactics and misrepresents the ­consensus scientific opinion about food technologies in an effort to demonize agribusiness. It is the movement that distrusts consumers to pick the right soda size.

and

The failing movement is one that, in pursuit of higher-quality, better-tasting food, forgot that most Americans can’t afford to shop at Whole Foods. We all can celebrate a good heirloom tomato, but something is rotten about the one forced upon us.

How will we feed 9 billion people?

That's the question asked in a great video by Evan Fraser at the University of Guelph.  I don't agree with all of this solutions but he provides some good food for thought on an important question that often gets overlooked in food discussions.

By 2050 there will be 9 billion people on the planet - but will there be enough food for everyone? Food security expert Dr Evan Fraser guides you through a whiteboard presentation of his solution to the Global Food Crisis. See www.feedingninebillion.com for more details

Does 1 lb = 3500kcal?

Researchers studying the effect of various food policies on changes in weight often use the simple saying that a change of 3500 kcal via diet or exercise results in a 1 lb change in weight (it is a claim we repeated in our paper in the Journal of Health Economics, which studied the efficacy of fat taxes).

I ran across this interesting post by a Mike Gibney, a public health and nutrition expert, who points out some problems with the 1 lb = 3500 kcal calculation.  Here's what he has to say:

Firstly, a 1lb weight loss will not be 100% fat but will also involve the loss of some lean tissue (muscle and protein elements of adipose tissue and its metabolism). Whereas fat has an energy value of 9 kcal/g, lean tissue has a value of 4 kcal/g. The exact ratio of the loss of lean and fat in weight reduction depends largely on the level of fat in the body at the outset.

and:

The second criticism of this rule is that it ignores time. If you shed 3,500kcal per week every week, that would differ from a deficit of 3,500 kcal per month every month. The former leads to a daily deficit of 500 kcal while the latter is just 117 kcal.

and:

Thirdly, the 3,500 kcal rule assumes complete linearity – in other words the rule equally applies, pound after pound of weight loss. We saw above that progressive weight loss will progressively increase the % of that weight loss as lean tissue but more importantly, the 3,500kcal rule ignores a major adaptation in energy expenditure

and on this topic, he concludes:

Clearly, the continued use of the 3,500 kcal rule in predicting weight loss should cease and the recommendations of the consensus statement of the ASN and ILSI should apply: “Every permanent 10 kcal change in energy intake per day will lead to an eventual weight change of 1lb when the body reaches a new steady state.  It will take nearly a year to achieve 50% and about 3 years to achieve 95%”.

Finally, I'll point out the importance of taking into account these kinds of issues when calculating the effects of fat taxes.  He says that according to one study, a 20% soda tax would lead to;

 a reduction of energy intake of 34-47 kcal per day for adults. Using the 3,500 kcal rule, an average weight loss of 1.60kg would be predicted for year 1 rising to 8kg in year 5 and to 16kg in year 10. However, when the dynamic mathematical model is used, the corresponding figures for years 1, 5 and 10 are, respectively, 0.97, 1.78 and 1.84 kg loss. The % of US citizens that are over-weight is predicted to fall from existing levels of 66.9% over-weight to 51.5% over-weight in 5 years time using the 3,500 kcal rate but using the dynamic mathematical model, the 5-year figure for the over-weight population in the US would be just 62.3%.

 

The Fat Tax that Wasn't

A while back Denmark passed a law to implement one of the first comprehensive "fat taxes."  A year after its implementation, it looks like they've changed their mind.  

One of the biggest drivers of the reversal was apparently public opinion, not to mention the negative economic impacts.  

I am often amazed at how easy many public health professions believe it is to change weight and corral bad behavior simply by just slapping a tax on things they don't like.  Just today, the folks over at Freakonomics discuss a recent conference where fat taxes were thought a really good idea (I've been a many of these kinds of meetings too).  

We economists often come across as uncaring , negative Nellies when we point out that such taxes often have very little effect on weight, have unintended consequences (as Denmark just realized), and are regressive (meaning that food taxes hit the poor the hardest).  

But, at the end of the day, who is more caring?  The folks pushing for costly taxes that wont materially change weight and health or those of us trying to prevent bad policies from affecting those who can least afford to pay the effects?

How Big Food Responds to Big Government

People who advocate for bans on large sodas, taxes on sugar and fat, and  mandatory calorie labels in restaurants often forget that food companies don't just sit idly by and follow the intentions of the policy makers.  Rather, firms (and even consumers) strategically respond to a new food environment - often in unanticipated ways.  

On that note, here is a paper that just appeared in the European Review of Agricultural Economics by four French researchers.   

They argue that:

. . . it is important to take into account the fact that food consumption decisions involve many dimensions related to price, taste, product convenience, health issues, etc. A consumer has to manage a trade-off between several product characteristics. Similarly, the firms have to deal with these multiple dimensions of food consumption in order to compete on a market in which the nutritional quality is just one of many criteria considered by consumers. The analysis of the economic effects of nutritional regulation must not neglect all of these dimensions as changes in the other (nonnutritional) product characteristics may be a response to nutritional policies which affects the welfare and the economic efficiency of nutritional regulation.

and

our results show that nutritional regulations may induce changes in consumers’ decisions and the product quality choices by firms, but they may also affect the competitive game. In an imperfect competition setting, firms react not only by adjusting price and product quality, but also by modifying the product variety available on the market and hence the level of substitutability between food products. This situation can lead to adverse effects from a public health perspective. Indeed, we show that if the tax rate is not well adjusted according to the quality threshold imposed to avoid taxation, it is possible to observe economic distortions that are not compensated by increased health benefits.