Mandatory labeling of trans fat begins

Happy New Year, food consumers! The Food and Drug Administration begins on Jan 1, 2006, to require food manufacturers to list trans fat on their "Nutrition Facts" panels.

Many manufacturers have already begun to report the amount of trans fat, which increases the risk of heart disease much as saturated fats do. Trans fats are found in baked goods, french fries, and hydrogenated vegetable oils. To a smaller extent, these fats also occur naturally in meat and dairy products. Leading scientific panels have encouraged consumers to select products with as little trans fat as possible.

The Food and Drug Administration has bent over backwards to act deliberately -- even slowly -- and to make sure that this decision is economically sound. The law that authorized the agency to add new lines to the nutrition Facts panel dates to 1990, and a citizen petition demanding the listing of trans fat dates to the early 1990s. A draft rule was published in 1999, and the final rule in July 2003 gave manufacture another 2-3 years to comply. The agency recently offered to let many companies delay implementation for a reasonable period after January 1, just to make sure they can use up their existing stocks of food labels and avoid needless duplicate printing costs.

The agency's analysis of costs and benefits, published in the Federal Register, is exhaustive. In such studies, seemingly minor changes in the assumptions can sometimes lead to major changes in conclusions, but this rule was not a close call. The agency estimates that even a small reduction in consumption of trans fats would prevent 600 to 1200 heart attacks per year, and save 200 to 480 lives per year. The economic savings over several years (discounted to present value) would be $900 million to $1.8 billion each year. By contrast, even when you sum all the testing, labeling, and product reformulation costs, the total is about $140 million to $250 million one time only.

The policy is very respectful of first amendment issues and consumer sovereignty. Rather than banning trans fat, FDA merely requires that consumers be provided with the information they need to make their own best choice. Judging by the response of leading food manufacturers, such as Kraft, the food giants suspect that consumers very much want to protect their health and avoid trans fat.

In the new label, there is no daily value for trans fat, because there is no recommended level -- better to avoid these fats whenever feasible. FDA considered requiring a footnote saying that health experts recommend "as little as possible," but the agency responded mercifully to industry complaints about this language. The best way to use the label is to add the value for trans fats to the value for saturated fats in your head, and compare that sum to the daily value.


The most important shortcoming of the current rule is that it doesn't apply to restaurant chains -- who use gobs of trans fat in their fried foods.

"Move more, eat less"

On an exam question this month, I asked students to describe ways that the new food guidance illustration, MyPyramid, graphically encourages physical activity (easy -- the graphic has a person walking up steps along the side of the Pyramid). I also asked students to describe ways that the illustration encourages moderation in food intake (this is more difficult -- one might talk about how the widths of the colored triangles favor foods with lower caloric density).

One student wrote with great confidence that the graphic communicated the caloric moderation message clearly through the words "Move more, eat less." Wow, I thought. Does it really say that? I searched on the MyPyramid site using the key words "eat less," and got the following message:

Results for: "eat less"

No results were found for your search.

Your query is too restrictive.

Ha.

A quick Google search shows that this motto actually is sometimes used by the healthy living program, America on the Move.

Guest blogging at Calorie Counter News

In addition to writing here, I am guest blogging for about three weeks at Calorie Counter News. Mark has also invited a couple fine writers to contribute while he is away: PastaQueen of Half of Me and Tanya Taylor of I Ate a Pie. Make a visit.

He has filled the hungry with good things!

Here's a tract so radical that I am astonished it survives in the current political environment. The traditional reading in the Christian tradition for today, the fourth Sunday of Advent, is Mary's song of praise:

And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior.... He has shown strength with his arm, he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts, he has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away."

How long has this crazy mumbo-jumbo been around? It certainly didn't start with Mary. She was inspired by the Israelite heroine Hannah.

Hannah also prayed and said, "My heart exults in the LORD; my strength is exalted in the LORD.... Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry have ceased to hunger.... The LORD makes poor and makes rich; he brings low, he also exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor."

Happy holy days to you and your family.

Becker and Posner on obesity and junk food advertising for children

The Becker-Posner Blog, a leading economics weblog by University of Chicago Nobelists Gary Becker and Richard Posner, tackles the obesity epidemic this week. The authors had just read the new Institute of Medicine report criticizing junk food advertising for children. As one might expect from these writers, they point out that much of the economic burden of obesity is carried by the overweight persons themselves, so the writers suggest there is little grounds for a government response.

I encourage Becker and Posner to reconsider their view with an open mind. They point out that there is only a comparatively weak "externality" argument for government interest in this problem (although one could talk about how many Americans share the same risk pools, due to medical insurance). However, the market failure that motivates a sensible government response to the obesity epidemic is an information failure. Just for starters, see here for a discussion of nutrition disclosure in restaurants, and here for a discussion of government communication about diet, health, and obesity. Because the federal government actively promotes advertising campaigns to get people to eat more beef, pork, and cheese, at a cost of several hundred million dollars each year, it would be far too timid to suggest that a laissez-faire response will suffice. Policy reform is required.

Still, I enjoyed the exchange of views. Gary Becker criticizes the IOM report:

Some persons at the Institute of Medicine went further and raised the prospect of possible Congressional regulation of TV ads oriented toward children, even though, as we will see, the evidence provided by the report is weak and not persuasive....

If children nowadays are heavier because they are less physically active than they used to be, or because their parents find fast food cheap and convenient, it is difficult to see how advertising by food and beverage companies are to blame. And despite the hype the study received, the Institute of Medicine's report on obesity and advertising did not present any convincing evidence that television advertising oriented toward children has been responsible for the increase in children's obesity during the past quarter century.

Posner adds:

Not only would banning television advertising of fattening foods on programs oriented to children and teenagers not reduce obesity, but it might increase it. To the extent that, as Becker suggests, such advertising has a much greater effect on brand shares than on aggregate demand for the products, the advertisers as a whole might be better off if forbidden to advertise. With higher profits, and an important form of nonprice competition eliminated, advertisers might compete more on price, resulting in lower prices to consumers and therefore greater competition.

Both posts generated a wealth of comments on the Becker-Posner Blog, including some comments from leading writers on these topics. The authors respond today. Becker suggests one more provocative explanation for the obesity epidemic:

One reasons seldom mentioned as a general factor partly behind the rise in obesity is the expectation that new drugs will greatly reduce the adverse consequences of being obese. I am not claiming that many teenagers are conscious of this consideration. However, any one who has observed the development of blood pressure and cholesterol lowering drugs during the past few decades can rationally believe that in twenty years or so still newer drugs that control diabetes and other diseases will be developed. Then for anyone who likes to eat sugary and fat foods, it does not seem so irrational to do so when the consequences will be much less harmful to health than they are at present.

Seems far-fetched, but clearly reflects the imagination of a true blue economist.

Hong Kong WTO trade talks near failure

With tear gas in the streets and little substantial progress in the halls where trade talks are held, the WTO negotiations in Hong Kong look like a failure (see the report by Keith Bradsher in tomorrow's New York Times).

Important provisions sought by the United States were not included in the draft. The agreement did not set a clear date for an end to most subsidies for agricultural exports and did not require countries to lower their tariffs on farm goods....

Before the talks, [United States trade representative Rob] Portman persuaded Congress to support an offer of deep cuts in American farm subsidies and the lifting of many barriers to agricultural imports. He promised to seek corresponding cuts from other countries, and especially from the European Union....

"The business community was encouraged by Portman's offer on agriculture, and the Congress accepted that on the understanding that he would bring back an agreement of corresponding value," said Thomas J. Donahue, the president and chief executive of the United States Chamber of Commerce....

Inside the hall, many ministers from developing countries voiced unhappiness that the European Union had not agreed to set a date for the elimination of export subsidies, despite an international agreement in July 2004 to phase them out.

The draft text set two possible dates for eliminating farm export subsidies: either 2010, or five years after a global trade agreement begins. Such an agreement could be far away, given the pace of negotiations, trade specialists warned. Leaders of the European Union agreed on Friday to a budget that maintains farm subsidies through 2013 at more than double American levels.

Export subsidies help rich countries sell food in poor countries, depressing income that some of the world's poorest people get when they sell in local markets the food they produce. "For them, an end date is absolutely essential," said Foreign Minister Celso Amorin of Brazil.

European Union officials vowed not to accept a deadline of 2010 and complained that not enough had been done on services.

This failure may well mean that farmers in developing countries face another decade of striving in vain against the blasting current of subsidized American and European grain, which washes their markets away like a flood. Weblogger (and soon-to-be Fletcher School faculty colleague at Tufts) Daniel Drezner provides a first-hand account of being in lockdown in Hong Kong, and also refers readers to this "link-rich post" from the weblog Simon's World for the latest news.

Feast of Babulu Aye, December 17

In Cuban tradition, today's feast of San Lazaro also honors Babalu Aye, the being who protects against fearsome diseases. He is honored with African drumming and special offertory food. Anderson Allen has a charming report yesterday for Public Radio International's program The World (link here for the audio), about the song "Babalu." This song became famous in the United States through the television show "I Love Lucy," but it actually has a rich Cuban tradition. Anderson is a Washington, DC, area musician -- especially a Cuban drummer -- and an old friend from a group house on P Street in the early 1990s, where we cooked communally and hence shared many dozen a vegetarian meal together.