Getting the biggest nutritional bang for our climate buck (especially for that $4 Latte)

There are recent headlines about Starbuck's 2020 initiative to reduce their carbon footprint and part of that strategy is offering plant based alternative drinks vs the traditional dairy based ingredients.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/can-starbucks-save-the-planet-by-cutting-dairy-activists-and-investors-respond-2020-01-21

No matter what you order at starbucks, the impact is probably minimal compared to the impact of simply how you get there.

Given that consuming #beef in the U.S. accounts for less than .5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, it's no doubt eating a salad in a restaurant or a veggie sub is less climate friendly than a steak at home. https://t.co/dVKTRx83k1

— Matt Bogard (@AgEconomist) January 26, 2020

Maybe you can get past that argument if you are combining trips.

But combining trips makes for a good analogy when it comes to the carbon footprint of our food.

How do we know we are getting the most nutritional bang for our climate buck. In a 2010 Food and Nutrition Research article, authors introduce what they are calling a Nutrient Density to Climate Impact (NDCI) index that takes this into account. According to their work:

"the NDCI index was 0 for carbonated water, soft drink, and beer and below 0.1 for red wine and oat drink. The NDCI index was similar for orange juice (0.28) and soy drink (0.25). Due to a very high-nutrient density, the NDCI index for milk was substantially higher (0.54) than for the other beverages. Future discussion on how changes in food consumption patterns might help avert climate change need to take both GHG emission and nutrient density of foods and beverages into account."

Just as combining trips and carpooling might be effective ways to reduce your carbon footprint getting the most out of every mile driven and gallon of gas used, we should be trying to get the most out of every bite we take and ounce we drink. Starbucks could help us do this by supporting our dairy farmers and emphasizing the very high NDCI for milk! After all, it does a body good.

HT: I found out about the NCDI via this related post by Michelle Payn https://causematters.com/advocacy/starbucks-environment-farmer/

References:

Smedman A, Lindmark-Månsson H, Drewnowski A, Edman AK. Nutrient density of beverages in relation to climate impact. Food Nutr Res. 2010;54:10.3402/fnr.v54i0.5170. Published 2010 Aug 23. doi:10.3402/fnr.v54i0.5170

Impact of Farm Subsidies on Food Prices and Consumption

Julian M. Alston, Daniel A. Sumner, Stephen A. Vosti,
Farm subsidies and obesity in the United States: National evidence and international comparisons,
Food Policy,
Volume 33, Issue 6,
2008

Even if eliminating farm subsidies were to increase corn prices by as much as 10% (which is in the high end of the highest estimates) the resulting impact on food prices is minimal. Food price reductions as a result of corn subsidies are around 2% which would imply an increase in consumption as a response to price near .5%. The resulting increase in beef consumption would be .10%.

Simulating Impacts of Food Taxes and Subsidies

 Just last week I posted about food subsidies. I asked:

"Could you make the argument that simply shifting money toward programs related to fruits and vegetables would have a large enough impact on price to influence consumption? How much money would that take and what would the effect size be?"

This video discusses a PLOS medicine study that finds positive health benefits related to subsidies for fruits and vegetables and the referenced study (from a 'headline' reading) indicates a 10% subsidy could have a meaningful impact on health:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/video/tunedin/making-fruits-and-veggies-cheaper-could-save-a-lot-of-american-lives/vi-BBCQCE0

The video makes no direct reference to a study. However based on this reading I think the following are the studies mentioned in the video, the first being the primary reference:

Reducing US cardiovascular disease burden and disparities through national and targeted dietary policies: A modelling study. PLOS Medicine. June 6, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002311

Taxes and Subsidies for Improving Diet and Population Health in Australia: A Cost-Effectiveness Modelling Study. PLOS Medicine. February 14, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002232

Both papers are simulations based on assumptions related to elasticities and projected health outcomes (vs. empirical findings). One thing advocated is to create a revenue neutral policy that taxes soda and subsidizes fruits and vegetables. I'm skeptical, but if I want to give any credit I could say cynically that in this way maybe a soda tax could be useful even if it fails to have any meaningful impact on consumption or health.

See also: 

Are Soda Taxes Effective?
Four Big Questions about Farm Subsidies

Wednesday Post: Subsidies and Food Prices

WaPo:

One big reason some foods cost so much more than others

“Hint: It’s (mostly) not subsidies. Although they’ve certainly played a role in shaping our food supply such that we have huge quantities of just a few crops — a recipe for low prices — the discrepancy that seems to be at issue is the one between commodity crops such as corn and soy, and the fruits and vegetables that everyone’s trying to get us to eat more of. There’s a factor there that plays a much larger role than subsidies, and it doesn’t get much airtime…Its machines.”

An older article from 2014 in WaPo:

Farm bill: Why don’t taxpayers subsidize the foods that are better for us?

“But we also need to move away from a system that requires taxpayers to spend billions underwriting a system detrimental to public health.”

That last statement needs some qualification. We've seen something similar before from the NYT (see Are Farm Subsidies Making us Fat).  Not sure the causal link between subsidies and public health is much to talk about.

Economist Jayson Lusk knocks it out the the park. He addresses the science behind these specious connections  (and links to a number of related research articles) and includes some of his work in the area:

"There are actual lots of people who know how much farm subsidies contribute to food consumption, and they're called agricultural economists (in fact, McMillian goes on to then cite two prominent food and agricultural economists on the issue: Parke Wilde and David Just)…..In the model I used for the forthcoming paper I wrote on the distributional impacts of crop insurance subsidies, I find that the complete removal of crop insurance subsidies to farmers would only increase the price of cereal and bakery products by 0.09% and increase the price of meat by 0.5%, and would also increase the price of fruits ad vegetables by 0.7%.  So, while these policies may be inefficient, regressive, and promote regulatory over-reach, their effects on food prices are tiny, and depending on which policy we're talking about, could push prices and consumption up or down."

Could you make the argument that simply shifting money toward programs related to fruits and vegetables would have a large enough impact on price to influence consumption? How much money would that take and what would the effect size be?

Tuesday Assorted Links: Food, Health, and Nutrition

Eggs can significantly increase growth in young children

Association Between Indulgent Descriptions and Vegetable Consumption: Twisted Carrots and Dynamite Beets