The Low Price-Elasticity of Vegetable Consumption
Ezra Klein has an interesting post primarily focused on the disappointing results of trying to subsidize fruit and vegetable consumption:
Diansheng Dong and Biing Hwan-Lin recently conducted a study for the USDA’s economic research service modeling the likely impact of a 10 percent discount on fruits and vegetables for low-income Americans (defined here as incomes below 130 percent of the poverty line). They concluded that the policy, which would cost $580 million, would spur low-income Americans to increase their consumption of fruits by 2.1-to-5.2 percent and vegetables by 2.1-to-4.9 percent. It’s not nothing, but it’s not much. The graph below shows the effects of the policy, the effects of the policy doubled (20 percent off fruits and vegetables), and in the final column, how far even the double-subsidy world is from the USDA’s recommended consumption of fruits and vegetables (which is probably still too low!)
One cautionary note about the graphic here would be that actual behavior is so far off from USDA recommended behavior that putting the USDA goals in the chart winds up making the changes very small. If the goal is a 70 percent increase in vegetable consumption, you shouldn’t be surprised that a 20 percent discount doesn’t achieve the goal.
More broadly, though, when discussing this issue it’s important to recall that vegetables are not expensive. I went to the farmer’s market over the weekend and mixed root vegetables (sweet potatoes, carrots, turnips, various kinds of onions and potatoes, etc.) were available for $1 a pound and all these are, needless to say, for sale for less money at a regular supermarket. Indeed, it’s the relative abundance of vegetables that gets us in trouble. Having evolved in an environment where plants are plentiful but meat and sweets and refined grains are rare, we’re programmed to act as if we’ll be eating plenty of vegetables out of necessity and had better grab the other stuff while we have a chance. So any policy to turn these habits around will run into some difficulties as it’s literally going against human nature.
But the bigger issue than price for most people is almost certainly convenience. We’ve created a society where people work longer hours than they used to, where parenting expectations have gotten higher, and where fewer and fewer families have mom serving as a full-time unpaid housekeeper/cook/nanny. Ezra observes that most people “live closer to a McDonald’s than a grocery store.” And, indeed, looking back on it I’ve been struck by how rapid and dramatic the change in my eating habits has been since I moved from being near many takeout food options but far from a grocery store to living closer to a supermarket than a takeout spot.
On the other hand, Ezra says “taking 10 percent off the price of the rotted bananas at the convenience store won’t do much to encourage their consumption” since they’re still rotten. I’m actually not so sure. Sometimes a store can get into a bad fruit equilibrium, as Sonya’s Market on 11th and Harvard was circa 2003 when I lived nearby. Few people bought the bananas there, so the bananas were rarely fresh, so you didn’t think of Sonya’s as a good place to buy banana’s, so the banana turnover was low and the banana’s were rarely fresh. Conversely, you can achieve a good bodega equilibrium where expectations of high demand lead to fresh produce lead to high levels of consumption which keeps the produce fresh.
Last but by no means least, I don’t think it makes a ton of sense to talk about subsidizing fruits and vegetables without talking first about un-subsidizing corn, soy and the corn ‘n soy derivatives that artificially drive down the price of Fritos and Big Macs. The policy argument for subsidizing healthy eating is convincing enough to me, but obviously is going to fly in the face of widely held anti-paternalist sensibilities. The case against subsidizing unhealthy eating, by contrast, is totally unimpeachable.
75 Responses to “The Low Price-Elasticity of Vegetable Consumption”
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February 17th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
You will note that most of these are starchy veggies – nutritionally not that different from grains. Onions and carrots are marginally non-starchy, but considered on the borderline.
Look at the prices for Cauliflower, Broccolli, brussel sprouts , green beans, musrooms and so forth.
February 17th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
I went to the farmer’s market over the weekend and mixed root vegetables (sweet potatoes, carrots, turnips, various kinds of onions and potatoes, etc.) were available for $1 a pound and all these are, needless to say, for sale for less money at a regular supermarket.
Uh, probably not, Matt. That’s a very good price for root vegetables, one that supermarkets probably only beat in bulk (eg, a 5 lb. sack of potatoes). But (speaking as someone who does 100% of his family’s food shopping) I’d be shocked if you could pick-and-choose all those things for less than $1/lb. at a grocer.
Farmer’s market produce can be priced at a premium, but it’s a fallacy to presume that it is. Produce is a tiny sliver of supermarket revenues, and – for the very reasons you point out in the post – people don’t shop based on produce prices, so supermarkets rarely offer the best produce prices in a community. What they offer instead is produce available in the same store with meats, canned goods, ice cream, and greeting cards.
February 17th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
What on earth is your point, Gar? Green beans are, even out of season, maybe $2/lb. You can’t even get soup bones that cheap. When I do a week’s shopping, the produce bill for 4 meals is usually comparable to meat for 2 meals – 1 if it’s a fancy cut.
Fresh fruit out of (local) season tends to be relatively pricey (eg, cherries are upwards of $4/lb for all but 3-5 weeks a year in the Northeast), but otherwise a meat-free diet is far cheaper than a meat-centric diet of comparable sophistication (ie, don’t compare the costs of Hamburger Helper with locally-sourced gazpacho).
February 17th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
You say, “We’ve created a society where people work longer hours than they used to, where parenting expectations have gotten higher, and where fewer and fewer families have mom serving as a full-time unpaid housekeeper/cook/nanny.”
But… how does this jive with the graph and its focus on low-income people? Most “strivers” are middle-class to upper-middle class, and despite what you hear, most don’t have nannies or cooks. THESE are the people who are actually most pressed for time, it seems to me. But their kids manage to eat a lot of vegetables, and tend to be less fat.
But many people who are poor are poor because they don’t work. I am not saying this is always, or even usually, their fault. But the fact of the matter is, unemployed people have more time the employed people to shop and cook. But they tend not to, it seems.
That is, if “time” were a major issue, wouldn’t people who work the least be the least fat and have the best diets?
February 17th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
For me, the convenience argument isn’t so much groceries vs. McDonalds as it is cooking veggies (which involves not only recipe knowledge but also washing stuff, chopping stuff up, etc.) vs. cooking some processed food where I just have to boil water. Processed food is just easier, and with my schedule I don’t have time to whip up a salad or multi-course meal with a veggie dish.
February 17th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
bad fruit equilibrium
IHNSTSH, IJLS ‘bad fruit equilibrium’.
were available for $1 a pound and all these are, needless to say, for sale for less money at a regular supermarket.
Deflation at the Farmer’s Market.
we’re programmed to act as if we’ll be eating plenty of vegetables out of necessity and had better grab the other stuff while we have a chance.
Meat offers the cheapest cost per calorie, but as you said, it’s scarce. But that’s where the food is. So when someone is porking out on the fats, they’re doing the correct thing, just too much of it.
The case against subsidizing unhealthy eating, by contrast, is totally unimpeachable.
So we say we’re not going to subsidize crap, but we’re willing to compromise and subsidize the better stuff.
max
['Der tag.']
February 17th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Frozen vegetables are good enough, if it’s a choice of vegetables or no vegetables.
February 17th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
“The case against subsidizing unhealthy eating, by contrast, is totally unimpeachable.”
I see what you did there.
February 17th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
That is, if “time” were a major issue, wouldn’t people who work the least be the least fat and have the best diets?
Time is surely part of it. But “people who work the least” are also likely to be living in apartments that are poorly equipped for meal preparation, lack the knowledge to make inexpensive foods taste good, etc.
Besides, plenty of people who are poor are *working* poor, and are working long hours for crap wages. And McDonald’s is really, really cheap, convenient, and filling.
February 17th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Why on earth did you put an apostrophe into the word “bananas”? Jesus, Matt.
February 17th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
You’re right about vegetables being cheap. That’s why I never understand it when people say expenses are why poor people don’t eat well. Carrots cost nothing. Neither to other root vegetables (though pototoes are more a starch than a vegetable in terms of nutritional value). Neither do onions. Frozen vegetables, ditto. Same for red cabbage, which is healthy and requires no prep time. Broccoli is reasonably inexpensive. Some fruits are cheap too – bananas are, and apples are even when they’re out of season. Peppers are expensive, but they’re more the exception than the rule.
Cheese is ridiculously expensive. Meat is expensive. That’s the kind of thing that knocks holes in your grocery bill. Not veggies.
February 17th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
On the “time” argument, I think one needs to consider the myriad non-work demands on one’s time, some of which are exacerbated by poverty. (Commutes, children, coupon shopping…)
Of course, I also think it’s a weak argument.
There is no doubt 20 minutes in everyone’s day that could be used for preparing great healthy meals. (If only everyone had the services of a professional chef, dietitian, and time management expert to figure out how.) And a Republican would immediately find a genuinely lazy bum (there are plenty, even if most aren’t) and claim the whole thing is just a moral issue (”if people weren’t lazy we wouldn’t have this problem”).
But good policy actually has to DEAL with ‘laziness’ anyway. This is all firmly in the realm of cognitive economics.
February 17th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
I don’t know what markets people here are shopping in, but on my planet, onions have gone through the roof (between $1.15 and $1.70 lb!), turnips have never been cheap, and broccoli is approaching cauliflower prices. And as for frozen vegetables…maybe on sale you can get a small packet of peas for a buck that will feed two parsimoniously. Farmer’s markets are a great choice for people who can get to them, but living poor in the city means you may not have access to one. Can’t understand how poor people can’t afford to eat healthy, Katherine? Try it sometime…feed yourself and 2 kids nutritiously on $1.66 per person each day, which is what food stamps will get a family of 3 per month.
February 17th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
I’d like to see some quantitative evidence that meat is more expensive than vegetables. I can buy chicken for a few bucks a pound. It is lean and has nutrients that I can’t get from vegetables. On the other hand apples are expensive per pound, and about half of an apple is inedible core. And it doesn’t keep well, whereas chicken can be frozen indefinitely. So, does anyone have any evidence besides an anecdote at the farmer’s market?
February 17th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
“Having evolved in an environment where plants are plentiful but meat and sweets and refined grains are rare,”
This is completely wrong. Humans evolved in an environment where meat was plentiful and vegetables were rare. Paleo man was not running around and picking up carrots and broccoli out of the ground. He was killing animals and eating them.
February 17th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Much of the problem is cultural. Not culture as in ethnic culture, but culture as in shared American culture. Little time for cooking is part of the issue. So is instant gratification–even if you have the time to shop and cook, you’d rather just go through the drive through.
It is possible to change this culture, particularly among a specific target group such as low income people, but it will take a lot of work. Sounds like a nationwide volunteer project to me.
February 17th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Sam M, that’s a stupid thing to say. Low income people aren’t unemployed; if they were, they’d be no income people.
February 17th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
I can buy chicken for a few bucks a pound. It is lean and has nutrients that I can’t get from vegetables.
Are antibiotics nutrients?
February 17th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
As some commenters have touched on, I think the relevant price comparison is calories/dollar, not weight/dollar. Meat, dairy, “processed food,” etc are all much better values on that metric. I love apples, but they aren’t particularly filling.
February 17th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
Of the 230-plus years since the Declaration of Independence, what percentage of them were years in which people worked less than they do now? Matthew’s sense of history is always a bit interesting.
I regularly can buy a pound of frozen broccoli florets (no stems) for somewhere between $1 to $1.50. I can buy 1 pound of black beans or lentils for about the same price. If I buy larger packages, it is even cheaper. I bought USDA choice rib-eye steaks on sale two weeks ago for $3.88 pound. I usually buy whole chickens for .99 cents a pound. I can buy 12 high quality Fuji apples for 6 dollars, or five bananas for a buck. I buy a dozen eggs somewhere between .99 cents and $1.50. Milk is now back to $2.00 a gallon. I can feed two adults and three kids for two weeks very nutritionally for about $25 bucks. I live in an urban area, and buy everything within five miles of my home.
Food is really cheap in this country, in most places .
February 17th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
I think it’s legitimate to point out that vegetables are not cheap where poor people in my neighborhood (and me, occasionally) buy groceries. Everything is cheap at the big suburban grocery store- but if you don’t have a car, and you go to the local small grocery around the corner from me, then you have your pick of terrible-quality vegetables for about double the price. As cheap as onions and bananas are, they don’t make a meal, and you definitely don’t want them if they suck. It just doesn’t make sense in that setting to cook for yourself, b/c you end up spending a fair amount of time shopping and cooking, the produce is awful quality, and it’s significantly more expensive than McDonald’s.
February 17th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
Sam M, come on. There’s lots of assumptions and argument conflating going on in every side of this argument, but any low income person with any responsibilities (ie kids, elderly parents, desire not to be poor, etc.) is most definitely not LESS busy. The unemployment rate only recently went about 10% for low-income folks. Don’t bring back old welfare-queen style prejudice and assumptions…
And as a few have pointed out, those prices MY quotes definitely will NOT be beat by your grocer. My wife and I live in LA, so granted, there’s a lot more available this time of year here from farmer’s markets than in the northeast corridor (even the south end of it), but we budget $40/week for the farmer’s market and we EASILY get what would cost $60-$80 at the grocery store, sometimes even more.
I think the cultural, educational, and socioeconomic things you hint at are clearly the bigger constraint. Consider the time constraint mentioned above. My wife and I cook together and find it worth it to invest the time in cooking good food (which, especially since she’s vegetarian, and because of how we were raised, is invariably also good for you). But I can easily envision a time once we have kids and both continue to work, that investing 60-90 minutes on cooking and cleaning the kitchen won’t even be possible, much less desirable. Does boiling prepared/processed food seem such a silly option then…
February 17th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Riggsveda –
I don’t know what markets people here are shopping in, but on my planet, onions have gone through the roof (between $1.15 and $1.70 lb!), turnips have never been cheap, and broccoli is approaching cauliflower prices. And as for frozen vegetables…maybe on sale you can get a small packet of peas for a buck that will feed two parsimoniously.
Okay. I’ve lived in a large city (which had loads of farmers markets, but everything there tended to be three times the price of regular grocery-store food). $2 for about a pound of frozen peas. Carrots for <$1/lb. Approximately $1 for three apples. And about $5 for enough meat to make two (one-person) meals, unless you’re buying ground beef (which I typically did). And $14 for a decent-sized block of cheese.
You are right that you couldn’t eat solely what you can buy with food stamps, which comes to $50/person/month; $50 lasted me typically about two weeks for food. But vegetables weren’t the cost problem.
I also do understand from experience that sometimes it’s just easier and less trouble to grab fast food than spend half an hour or an hour deciding what to cook, making it and washing up. But lowering grocery prices wouldn’t have an impact on that – least of all for vegetables and fruits, which are one of the few things you CAN eat and enjoy without preparation.
brocktoon –
As some commenters have touched on, I think the relevant price comparison is calories/dollar, not weight/dollar.
I don’t think so. The vast majority of people get enough calories. Even in the third world, malnourisment (lack of needed nutrients) is a far bigger problem than undernourishment (lack of sufficient caloric intake). You could get enough calories by living off potatoes or rice, but you still wouldn’t be healthy. Fruits and vegetables are important for the nutrients they provide more than for the caloric intake.
February 17th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
Katherine -
Hmm, I’m not sure if we’re actually disagreeing. I guess my point is this: I can eat a dollars’ worth of Velveeta shells and cheese and be satiated, or I can eat a dollars’ worth of broccoli and still be hungry. Essentially, I think it’s inappropriate to compare a pound of broccoli and a pound of cheddar and say that broccoli is actually cheaper. That block of cheddar goes a lot further than the broccoli in terms of making me not hungry, which I think still is the single most important criteria for deciding what to eat. I propose the creation of a “Satiety Index” in order to compare food prices directly.
February 17th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Paleo man was not running around and picking up carrots and broccoli out of the ground. He was killing animals and eating them.
You’re kidding, right?
February 17th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
I wish someone would stop bashing the proletarians’ nutritional ignorance and instead trace the non-consumption of vegetables back in various ethnic groups (try African-American and Scots-Irish, not to imply that these groups are more destined to poverty). Before the 1970’s consumption of vegetables, even in the American upper strata, was not emphasized and the veggies tended to be either salad (including Jell-O salad) or over-cooked. This book The United States of Arugula gives some of the history.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (especially in urban environments) it was even worse. Everyone knows that sailors on long voyages often got scurvy before the British Navy mandated the consumption of lime juice, but their diet aboard ship represented only an extreme version of a meat- and bread- or potato-based diet.
February 18th, 2009 at 1:33 am
As for the time commitment involved in cooking, I never really thought it seemed like it took a lot of time myself, and I’m a married guy with no kids who almost always does at least half the work of cooking dinner. But my wife and I have flexible schedules. I started thinking…
On a typical schedule, I figure, parents get off work at 5, maybe get home and start cooking by 6. How late do kids go to bed these days? I’m guessing 9 for littler kids, 10-11 for older ones. Seems like you’d end up with a very narrow window for everything that needs to be done on a typical family night. Given that window, spending 60-90 minutes on cooking and eating (like my wife and I do on a typical night) is going to give families no margin for error. I can see how fast/instant/HotPocketEsque food starts to look very, very appealing.
February 18th, 2009 at 3:56 am
Well look, you have to face the facts that vegetables don’t taste very good. They’re something you eat so you can get to the good stuff (not necessarily desert). Fruit does at least.
February 18th, 2009 at 9:02 am
Well, vegetables only don’t taste very good if you can’t cook them, which I guess completely validates the argument that people don’t have the time or inclination or learn to cook them (and then proceed to actually do it) effectively.
That being said, I’m not sure that we can talk about replacing chicken or ground beef with carrots and celery. They don’t offer the same nutritional value. (protein in meat vs. vitamins and fiber in veggies) When comparing meat with other protein heavy staples like dried beans, lentils, nuts, chickpeas etc.. they come out way ahead in both price and nutritional value per calorie. For the dollar that a pound of dried beans costs, served with some equally cheap rice, one can feed more people than with a pound of chicken or the aforementioned Velveeta shells and cheese.
February 18th, 2009 at 9:08 am
Holy shit, my 4-y.o. daughter is commenting as MNPundit!
Also, 14 and 15 display astonishing ignorance of the facts.
I should just leave it there, but I can’t:
The cheapest raw chicken you can buy is a whole chicken, which costs say $1.30/lb., and which is over 50% inedible by weight, netting $3/lb (plus either significant prep time or cooking time). Already-prepped, boneless cuts run well over $4/lb. Thanks to grain subsidies, those costs are all lowered significantly by our tax dollars.
Apples are about 70% flesh by weight, and cost $2/lb. out of season, $1/lb in-season, for a net of $1.50-$3/lb. No prep or cooking time, obviously. Also, apples keep for weeks; non-frozen meat for days. Little or no subsidy.
It is certainly true that an apple is less satiating than a piece of meat. The question is why Americans tend to eat a half pound or more of meat per dinner, and an ounce or two of non-starch vegetable. A dinner of greens cooked with a bit of smoked meat plus rice & beans (ie, Cajun food) is satisfying, cheap, and nutritious*. But we don’t eat that way.
* And takes maybe half an hour to cook, if you use canned beans or a pressure cooker
February 18th, 2009 at 9:09 am
I think another factor is the increased urbanization of our population. In cities I visit it is not only difficult to find a decent large supermarket that has good produce, but it is then even more difficult to get that large load of food home on a bus or train and then lug it up stairs or in an elevator. It is a lot easier for suburban or rural types to simply drive to the huge mall supermarkets and fill up the car with whatever you want and then drive home to the driveway where you park right next to the house and carry the stuff in. I walk a lot to the supermarket near my house and veggies are a lot bulkier and heavier than many processed foods, therefore when I walk I tend not to buy veggies. Simply finding the food and getting it home is part of the problem.
February 18th, 2009 at 9:31 am
As a DC-born vegetarian who’s lived in Chicago for a long time, I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about this. My version is less about particular ethnic groups and more about the stockyards that shaped the lives of so many new immigrants here.
That basic diet of processed meat and white bread is still going strong here*, often with an antipathy towards vegetables — hello MNPundit! — that I really haven’t run into outside the Upper Midwest.
This is also reason #9999999999 I don’t take revealed preferences arguments very seriously.
*In the sense of ’significant minority’
February 18th, 2009 at 9:59 am
JRoth,
You must live in bizarro land, or else are a liar, because where I live boneless skinless frozen chicken is 5.99 for a 3 pound bag. That is 2 dollars a pound. And apples this time of year cost 5 dollars for a 2 pound bag. And you’re wrong, because over 50% of the weight of an apple is in the core.
http://www.ifr.ac.uk/Public/FoodInfoSheets/applefacts.html
The evidence seems to be liar at this point.
February 18th, 2009 at 10:03 am
Also, for the nutritionally challenged, there are NO sources of vitamin B12 complexes outside of meat. None.
http://www.vegsoc.org/info/b12.html
So for the food pundits wondering why people eat meat instead of veggies, perhaps it is because people wish to avoid malnutrition?
February 18th, 2009 at 10:48 am
(Oops, link fail)
February 18th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Jack, what could you possibly be referring to?
February 18th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Is this a joke? Fresh vegetables are a cheaper way to eat than processed food?
McDonald’s has a value menu where you can get a McDouble–two patties of beef and a slice of cheese on a bun with pickles and onions and ketchup for $1.00. You can get a fried chicken sandwich for $1.00. Put either of them together with a small fries ($1.00) and you can get a 600 calorie meal for $2.00.
Sure, if you don’t count the hidden overhead costs of a car, gasoline, gas for the stove, cooking oil, spices, salt, pepper, refrigerator, electricity for the refrigerator, repair for any of the above, kitchen cabinets and storage devices that roaches and mice can’t get into, lost meals because your kids don’t like the nasty vegetables, the cost of knowledge of how to cook, the occasional loss of a meal due to burning or other culinary mishap, soap for cleanup, dishes, sponges, hot water and water to clean dishes, losses to spoilage due to less than perfect organization in your food consumption, cost of meals you didn’t have to cook because the kids had a school party or ate at someone else’s home or something…I’m sure you can argue it’s cheaper to eat nutritious food than McDonald’s value meals. But I don’t know who you’re kidding.
February 18th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Jack, what could you possibly be referring to?
Sorry, looks this earlier comment of mine was held for moderation:
“Also, for the nutritionally challenged, there are NO sources of vitamin B12 complexes outside of meat. None.”
Umm. No. In terms of avoiding B12 deficiency, this is just flat wrong, wrong, and wrong. [links to wikipedia articles on cyanocobalamin, eggs, and milk]
(Did you even read the article you linked?)
February 18th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
You know, a 2.1-to-5.2 percent increase in F&V consumption is an over 100% increase. Let’s not minimize (too much) the effect of the policy. When F&V consumption rates are that low, and there are so many structural and cultural factors at work, that kind of increase, while small, is meaningful.
February 18th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
I hate to break it to you, but eggs and cheese are pretty much meat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12
“Vitamin B12 is naturally found in meat (especially liver and shellfish), milk and eggs. Animals, in turn, must obtain it directly or indirectly from bacteria, and these bacteria may inhabit a section of the gut which is posterior to the section where B12 is absorbed. Thus, herbivorous animals must either obtain B12 from bacteria in their rumens, or (if fermenting plant material in the hindgut) by reingestion of cecotrope fæces. Eggs are often mentioned as a good B12 source, but they also contain a factor that blocks absorption.[24] Certain insects such as termites contain B12 produced by their gut bacteria, in a manner analogous to ruminant animals.[25] An NIH Fact Sheet lists a variety of food sources of vitamin B12.
According to the U.K. Vegan Society, the present consensus is that any B12 present in plant foods is likely to be unavailable to humans and so these foods should not be relied upon as safe sources, as the B12 analogues can compete with B12 and inhibit metabolism. Also, vegan humans who eat only plant based foods must ordinarily take special care to supplement their diets accordingly. The only reliable vegan sources of B12 are foods fortified with B12 (including some soy products and some breakfast cereals), and B12 supplements.[26]”
So vegetables will not give you vitamin B-12, and thus one must eat meat in some form or other in order to avoid malnutrition. But you knew that already, you were just being intellectually dishonest. What point you were trying to make, I don’t know.
February 18th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
“Cyanocobalamin usually does not even occur in nature, and is not one of the forms of the vitamin which is directly used in the human body (or that of any other animal).”
Apparently Jack, you don’t even read the articles you link.
February 18th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
The point is that eggs, milk, and microbiologically synthesized B12 supplements are, you know, NOT MEAT.
Who’s being intellectually dishonest?
February 18th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
“Cyanocobalamin usually does not even occur in nature, and is not one of the forms of the vitamin which is directly used in the human body (or that of any other animal).”
Apparently Jack, you don’t even read the articles you link.
You’ll note that the matter of whether something “usually occurs in nature” or not is entirely irrelevant to the question of whether it’s available at the supermarket and provides a good source of B12.
You might even have noticed the article you linked originally pointed out that foods (like soy-based meat substitutes) were supplemented with B12.
Non meat-based B12.
February 18th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
More broadly, though, when discussing this issue it’s important to recall that vegetables are not expensive. I went to the farmer’s market over the weekend and mixed root vegetables (sweet potatoes, carrots, turnips, various kinds of onions and potatoes, etc.) were available for $1 a pound and all these are, needless to say, for sale for less money at a regular supermarket. Indeed, it’s the relative abundance of vegetables that gets us in trouble.
You live in a very, very privileged world, my friend.
When I lived in Harlem and in Washington Heights, I could live for a week on $15 if I only bought pasta (or rice) but there were not enough calories in vegetables to justify $5.99 / lb asparagus (Westside Market, Fairway, the farmer’s market at 116 & B’way, Pathmark, and the store on 110th that I can’t remember anymore). C-Town up in the ghetto wasn’t any cheaper, and sold inferior foods. And lest you think that was just an asparagus fetish… I once had to pay $3.99 / lb for stupid potatoes.
When you’re in the very lowest income brackets (my job at a non-profit only brought in my rent, utilities, and student loan payment — I was basically bleeding money whenever I ate) and living somewhere the farmer’s markets don’t go… it’s a whole different world.
February 18th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
you can achieve a good bodega equilibrium where expectations of high demand lead to fresh produce lead to high levels of consumption which keeps the produce fresh.
There is no literal ‘bodega equilibrium’, although I like the phrase. The cheapest and often best veggies are at bigger stores which cater to cultures that eat a lot of that stuff – in my part of the world, Mexicans, Poles, and S. and E. Asians. Fruits and Veggies take up a lot of room, and you have to move a huge wad through the store to have both low prices and good quality. I pay under half what the ‘white’ people in my burb pay for veggies, because I drive a few miles.
If you approch food as ‘whatever sludge I was brought up eating’, making veggies cheaper is not going to get you to eat more of them – or even if they’re free (*especially* if they’re free, actually). Food is indeed a public health issue, and MY is of course right that the food subsidies he mentions are indefensible in that respect (not to mention others). But it’s a cultural issue, at bottom [and, this being the US, that includes cars. As I said, veggies are bulky and labor intensive and so inherently (relatively) expensive; IOW, unless you live in a big city and can walk or take public-trans, veggies are not really cheap unless you have a car.]
The answer – and not for the first time – is to become more like Mexicans. I don’t have data, but would bet money that a large plurality of 1st/2nd gen. working poor Mexicans cook regularly at home, and use a lot of fresh veggies; it may even be a majority. It’s cheaper and WAY better to actually cook your own food. If you don’t care about the ‘WAY better’ part, then I don’t know what’s going to convince you.
Truly poor people are another matter, as they always are. They’re outside of any system and have problems you can’t generalize about, or wouldn’t even think of. They don’t cook because: a.) they don’t have a kitchen , b.) as already mentioned, they have no car to get to the store, c.) some don’t have time – if you do happen to have a shit job, and it takes you 3 hours each way on a series of busses, you don’t have a lot of time to cook (or shop or sleep…..or eat).
One way around this culturo-nutritional problem is to have more street food. You can’t do that if there *is* no street/pedestrian life, and the local authorities usually don’t like it even if it does spring up. Instead, McDonalds is our ’street food’. Yum yum.
One of the best asian meals I ever ate was from a street stall in Singapore. Singapore is a *highly* regulated, modern city/state. How come they can do that and we can’t? (Anybody who’s ever had great street food from anywhere (India, Mexico) knows how great, and cheap, it can be.). We can’t do here what they do in Singapore because we don’t have, or severely proscribe, the very idea of street life (and street vendors). Street life is for losers and ethnic types.
February 18th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
One way around this culturo-nutritional problem is to have more street food. You can’t do that if there *is* no street/pedestrian life, and the local authorities usually don’t like it even if it does spring up. Instead, McDonalds is our ’street food’. Yum yum.
One of the best asian meals I ever ate was from a street stall in Singapore. Singapore is a *highly* regulated, modern city/state. How come they can do that and we can’t? (Anybody who’s ever had great street food from anywhere (India, Mexico) knows how great, and cheap, it can be.). We can’t do here what they do in Singapore because we don’t have, or severely proscribe, the very idea of street life (and street vendors). Street life is for losers and ethnic types.
I second this. I frequently bemoan the paucity of street food myself, because of its deliciousness and vegetable friendliness. I’d love to see a vibrant mix of ethnic street food stalls in walkable business districts everywhere.
Not all of it is exactly super-healthy, of course, but it’s probably still mostly better than burger and fries. Plus, the more variety the better. It’s often the little things that help break people out of “vegetables = steamed broccoli/limp boiled string beans/iceberg lettuce” cultural modes.
February 18th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
No response from Benny, so one last thing:
The government suggested B12 intake level is 2 micrograms a day, but the body stores and continually recycles most of the B12 it needs, so the maintenance level is probably more like just 0.1 micrograms/day (see the paper linked from wikipedia). At higher levels, B12 actually just builds up continuously in the liver.
B12 deficiency only sets in once the small losses from this process add up. That takes a decade or two in people with normal B12 pathways, and you can reset the clock anytime by taking some B12 again.
In other words, most people do not need to ingest B12 daily, or even yearly. And the level actually needed is very very low – maybe 35 or 40 micrograms a year.
Three ounces of beef contains about 2.5 micrograms of B12.
So even if Benny wants to get all his B12 from meat, that’s still only one little 1/5 pound burger every 25 days or so. Fourteen or fifteen a year. The rest of the time he could be completely vegan without worrying about his ‘essential meat-only nutrients’.
(And molluscs are an even better source, at 84 micrograms per 3 ounces, so another alternative for him is just to eat a few clams and snails or a little calamari every year or two.)
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