Results for “food” 2044 found
Do supermarkets improve our diets?
Better access to supermarkets — long touted as a way to curb obesity in low-income neighborhoods — doesn’t improve people’s diets, according to new research. The study, which tracked thousands of people in several large cities for 15 years, found that people didn’t eat more fruits and vegetables when they had supermarkets available in their neighborhoods.
Instead, income — and proximity to fast food restaurants — were the strongest factors in food choice.
The original piece (gated) is here.
The Great Fiction
Catherine Rampell, Bruce Bartlett, and Matt Yglesias are all pushing the chart below from a paper by Suzanne Mettler. According to this gang, people who use, for example, the mortgage interest deduction or who have a 529 college savings program are willfully ignorant about how they benefit from government (Rampell’s terminology).
As Bastiat said, “Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.” What Rampell et al. want to do is to make people believe in this great fiction. But there are always taxpayers and taxeaters, even though government has so wormed its way into every organ of the body politic that it is sometimes difficult to tell which are which. (Indeed, part of Mettler’s point is that the government shell game of ‘hide the subsidy, hide the tax’ is often designed to obscure taxpayers and taxeaters.)
Nevertheless, there are dividing lines. In a laissez-faire world we don’t get rid of 529 programs, instead all savings, not just savings for college, become tax-free. A 529 program is not a government program like food stamps, it is the absence of a government tax. (N.B. I am not taking a position here on the best tax structure.)
People who use 529 programs and who think that they have not used a government social program are not willfully ignorant, they are demonstrating a healthy if fading appreciation of the distinction between civil society and government. What Rampell et al. implicitly imagine is that the natural state is slavery and any departure from that state a government benefit. Thus, if the government taxes your saving for a college education less than your other savings, you should be grateful for how government has benefited you and your children.
And if the government doesn’t jail you today, you should be grateful for how government has granted you the benefit of liberty.
This is the attitude of a serf not an American.
Wolfers on Happiness
Excellent talk on happiness by Justin Wolfers. Robert Frank and discussion which follow are also good but Wolfers is outstanding.
A couple of things I learned. The flat happiness line in the United States over time is often contrasted with rising GDP per capita to assert a paradox. The paradox goes away once you take into account that median earnings haven’t risen (ala TGS).
Wolfers also shows that income matters not just for happiness but for a large number of correlates, inputs and outputs of happiness. Compared to people in poorer countries, people in richer countries, for example, more often say their food tastes good, they report less pain and they smile more.
Medicare Cost Control?
Long-time readers will know that I am skeptical of the FDA. Let’s ignore that for the purpose of this post. Now consider the following two quotes.
The FDA recommended unanimously that Avastin no longer be used to treat breast cancer, saying that the risks of the drug far outweighed any benefits.
…”Even though we have anecdotal information, we don’t have evidence that it prolongs survival or improves quality of life,” said Natalie Compagni-Portis, a patient representative and voting member of the FDA panel. In a series of four questions, the six-member panel voted across the board that the clinical trials conducted by Genentech did not provide evidence that Avastin prolonged life for breast cancer patients, nor did it improve their quality of life. The panel also recommended that FDA commissioner Peggy Hamburg should not continue to allow the drug to be used for breast cancer patients.
A strong statement from the FDA. Now compare:
Medicare will continue to cover Avastin for breast cancer treatment even if U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Peggy Hamburg decides to withdraw Avastin for such use, according to Don McLeod, a spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.
“The FDA decision, when it comes, does not affect CMS,” McLeod told Reuters.
How does this make sense? Does CMS have information that runs counter to the FDA’s information? If so, let’s hear it. Or is this just a turf war? What does this say about the prospects for cost control of Medicare?
In praise of travel in middle-income countries
Mexico, Turkey, and Brazil stand between “the developed world” and “the underdeveloped world.” They are all diverse regionally. They are different enough to be exotic, and wealthy enough to be comfortable. On your trip you can move between worlds with ease. They all have superb food and world-class sights. They are not finished works, but rather they are in the process of creating themselves. The journey is full of suspense. Two of the three (not Brazil) are cheap to travel in. Two of the three are safe.
Ankara is splendid, yet it receives few words of praise. Imagine that by visiting the current city you would be witnessing a world from centuries away. How you would swoon! The markets, the intact buildings, the exotic foodstuffs, the political monuments, the dynamism of the human spirit there, fill in the desired travel cliche. Suddenly you wake up and realize that you are viewing the Ankara of your own time. Why should all of that swoon go away?
Drop your bias against the temporally proximate; ruins are ruined, Ankara is not.
Good anecdote for progressives (conservatives?)
A couple of months ago Verone started weighing his options.
He considered turning to a homeless shelter and seeking medical help through charitable organizations.
Then he had another idea: commit a crime and get set up with a place to stay, food and doctors.
He started planning.
As his bank account depleted and the day of execution got closer, Verone sold and donated his furniture. He paid his last month’s rent and gave his notice.
He moved into the Hampton Inn for the last couple of days. Then on June 9 he followed his typical morning routine of getting ready for the day.
He took a cab down New Hope Road and picked a bank at random — RBC Bank.
Verone didn’t want to scare anyone. He executed the robbery the most passive way he knew how.
He handed the teller a note demanding one dollar, and medical attention.
The story is interesting throughout, here is another bit:
The ideal scenario would include back and foot surgery and a diagnosis and treatment of the protrusion on his chest, he said. He would serve a few years in prison and get out in time to collect Social Security and move to the beach.
The link is here (could he have signed up for the high-risk pool?) and for the link I thank J.T. Kounelias.
Police dogs can distinguish identical twins
Being an identical twin might seem like a great way to fool a DNA test and get away with the perfect crime. But furry forensic experts can make sure justice is served. In a new study, researchers instructed a group of children, including two sets of identical twins and two sets of fraternal twins, to swab the insides of their cheeks and place the swabs in glass jars. Working with ten police German shepherds and their handlers from the Czech Republic police, the researchers then ran a mock crime scene investigation. The handler presented one twin’s scent to the dog and then told it to go find the matching scent in a lineup of seven jars, which included the other twin’s scent. In twelve trials per dog, none of them ever identified the wrong twin as a match, the researchers report online this week in PLoS ONE, even though the children lived in the same home, ate the same food, and had identical DNA. No word yet on whether these dogs will be getting their own CSI spinoff.
The story is here and the paper is here, for the pointer I thank Michelle Dawson.
Sorted Turkish links
1. What’s up, and a Business Week survey.
2. Brain surgery in Turkey 5000 years ago.
3. Turkish problems with trade deficits and credit creation.
4. Why Turkey is backsliding on women’s rights.
5. What is the future of press freedom?
One possible take on the current situation is that Turkish liberties are eroding in a dangerous manner and the country will slide into some version of an Islamic state, through not-fully-democratic means yet sanctioned by the ballot box. A second take is that the liberties were not quite ever there in the first place, and Turkish society is moving to a more coherent and more sustainable equilibrium of state, religion, and citizen. Islam in Turkey is finding a way toward a more comfortable public space, albeit with bumps and mistakes along the way, and lasting radical secularization was never possible anyway. The rising middle class and Turkey’s historic uniqueness, and separation from the Persian and Arab worlds, will keep it on a “good enough” track. I incline toward the second and more optimistic view.
Central Turkey is more economically advanced than I had expected. It is downright nice here, and standards of living are reasonably high. Imagine the per capita income of Mexico or Brazil but with greater equality and stronger social cohesion. Food is even better than in Istanbul, namely it is spicier and has fresher raw ingredients.
Turkey will prove to be an important test case for whether a rapid influx of foreign capital can be done in a stable manner. It’s funny how a lot of the same economists who distrust a rapid capital influx in an international development context (“the hot money comes and goes”) are entirely happy to trust a rapid influx of capital into U.S. Treasury securities.
Not From the Onion
The headline says it all:
House keeps farm subsidies, cuts food aid
Here are some of the other provisions which seem designed just to be ridiculed by Jon Stewart:
Directs the Agriculture Department to rewrite rules it issued in January meant to make school meals healthier. Republicans say the new rules, the first major overhaul of school lunches in 15 years, are too costly.
Forces USDA to report to Congress every time officials travel to promote the department’s “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” program, which supports locally grown food, and discourages the department from giving research grants to support local food systems. Large agribusiness has been critical of the department’s focus on these smaller food producers.
Prevents USDA from moving forward with new rules that would make it easier for smaller farmers and ranchers to sue large livestock companies on antitrust grounds. The proposed rules are meant to address the growing concentration of corporate power in agriculture.
Delays for more than a year new rules for reporting trades in derivatives, the complex financial instruments blamed for helping precipitate the 2008 financial crisis. A Republican amendment adopted Thursday would require the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which funded in the bill, to first have other rules in place to facilitate its collection of derivatives market data.
Prevents the FDA from approving genetically modified salmon for human consumption, a decision set for later this year.
Questions the scope of Obama administration initiatives to put calories on menus and limit the marketing of unhealthy foods to children.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d probably do away with a number of these rules as well. But anyone who argues against making school meals healthier because it’s too expensive at the same time as they vote for keeping billions of dollars in farm subsidies is not concerned about expenses. What unites the bill is not ideology but protection of agribusiness.
Perhaps the most outrageous provision was one the good guys won:
Critics of farm subsidies did score one victory: The House voted to block a $147 million annual payment to Brazil’s cotton industry. The United States agreed to make that payment last year after Brazil’s industry complained to the World Trade Organization that Washington unfairly was subsidizing U.S. cotton farmers. The United States lost the WTO case and agreed to make the payments to Brazil as a settlement.
So not only have we been subsidizing cotton farmers but we have been paying Brazil to allow us to keep subsidizing cotton farmers. Incredible. I wonder whether this provision will make it into the final bill.
Drug Shortages
WP: Doctors, hospitals and federal regulators are struggling to cope with an unprecedented surge in drug shortages in the United States that is endangering cancer patients, heart attack victims, accident survivors and a host of other ill people.
Currently there are about 246 drugs that are in short supply, a record high. These shortages are not just a result of accident, error or unusual circumstance, the number of drugs in short supply has risen steadily since 2006. The shortages arise from a combination of systematic factors, among them the policies of the FDA. The FDA has inadvertently caused drugs long-used in the United States to be withdrawn from the market and its “Good Manufacturing Practice” rules have gummed up the drug production process and raised costs.
Here, for example, is an analysis from the summary report on drug shortages by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP), the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP).
Several drug shortages (e.g., concentrated morphine sulfate solution, levothyroxine injection) have been precipitated by actual or anticipated action by the FDA as part of the Unapproved Drugs Initiative, which is designed to increase enforcement against drugs that lack FDA approval to be marketed in the United States. (These drugs are commonly called pre-1938 drugs, referring to their availability prior to passage of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of that year.) Some participants noted that the cost and complexity of completing a New Drug Application (NDA) for those unapproved drugs is a disincentive for entering or maintaining a market presence. Other regulatory barriers include the time for FDA review of Abbreviated New Drug Applications (ANDA) and supplemental applications, which are required for changes to FDA-approved drug products (e.g., change in source for active pharmaceutical ingredients API, change in manufacturer). Manufacturers described this approval process as lengthy and unpredictable, which limits their ability to develop reliable production schedules.
and on GMP:
Manufacturing-related causes that contribute to drug shortages are multifactorial. Inability to fully comply with GMP, which results in production stoppages or recalls, was considered a major cause.
John Goodman at the Health Affairs Blog explains the details:
The Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been stepping up its quality enforcement efforts — levying fines and forcing manufacturers to retool their facilities both here and abroad. Not only has this more rigorous regulatory oversight slowed down production, the FDA’s “zero tolerance” regime is forcing manufacturers to abide by rules that are rigid, inflexible and unforgiving. For example, a drug manufacturer must get approval for how much of a drug it plans to produce, as well as the timeframe. If a shortage develops (because, say, the FDA shuts down a competitor’s plant), a drug manufacturer cannot increase its output of that drug without another round of approvals. Nor can it alter its timetable production (producing a shortage drug earlier than planned) without FDA approval.
Thus, it’s not any one thing that is causing the shortages but an accumulation of rules and regulations. The system plods along when all is normal, but when a novel situation develops the market can no longer adapt quickly and efficiently. As Michael Mandel puts it:
No single regulation or regulatory activity is going to deter innovation by itself, just like no single pebble is going to affect a stream. But if you throw in enough small pebbles, you can dam up the stream. Similarly, add enough rules, regulations, and requirements, and suddenly innovation begins to look a lot less attractive.
Add to all these pebbles the fact that various price controls have become more binding over time and thus have reduced the profits from being in the business at all and you have a recipe for deadly shortages.
Siracusa and Ortigia
Europe’s oldest church is an add-on to a former Temple to Athena; Catholic style draws upon the Greek more obviously when the two are juxtaposed. Food delicacies include sardines, pistachio, imaginative use of bread crumbs, unparalleled swordfish, smoked tuna, zucchini, sweet and sour pumpkin, fennel, and as in the Arab world the line between the meal and the sweets is not as firm as the French have tried to make it. Most of all, the ricotta stands out. Order a pasta “norma” style, with ricotta on top, and then have ricotta for dessert too.
Depopulation is evident, even in the beautiful areas near the sea on Ortigia. Fifty years from now, will it be empty, a crowded tourist theme park, ruled by Chinese capital, or full of Tunisians? Is the embedded cultural capital in current Siracusan society positive or negative in value? Is mobility equalizing average rates of return?
No one seems to mind that most of the art museum is rotting away. Ordinary life here has very little to do with the internet. The cats are skinny and fearful. The visit is splendid.
David Henderson on Medicare price controls
It is often debated whether a cut in Medicare reimbursement rates should be counted as a “price control.” David Henderson adds a valuable point:
…a year or two after I left the Council, the Reagan administration took the next step of imposing price controls on doctors under Medicare. Doctors were no longer allowed to do what was variously called “extra bill” or “balance bill.” They couldn’t charge even a penny more than Medicare paid. That’s what made it a system of price controls. Moreover, under later regulations, if a doctor takes even one Medicare patient, then he has to charge Medicare rates to all his Medicare patients even if those patients would rather ensure access by paying the whole bill (Medicare plus a doctor’s additional charge) out of their own pocket. It is this system of price controls that is causing many doctors to take no Medicare patients.
Here is more. Bryan Caplan comments, and Greg Mankiw’s recent post is relevant too.
Pet markets in everything the value of affiliation
One vendor is offering treadmills and treadwheels — essentially oversize hamster wheels — that let dogs exercise indoors, without the indignities of cracked sidewalks or rain.
There are “eco-friendly” pieces of furniture, grooming products and wipes, the wipes made from organically grown bamboo. An Israeli firm hawks dog shampoo containing Dead Sea minerals. Another, Pet Pop of Australia, promotes a vitamin-infused “mountain-spring water” for dogs. The price: $3.30 a bottle, about as much as a gallon of milk.
“We actually saw that there was a gap in the market for beverages for dogs,” says Bonnie Senior, a manager at the company. Then there is Jenn Mohr, who says she combined her love of dogs and love of candles to create Sniff Pet Candles. Made of “100 percent organic natural ingredients,” the aromatherapy candles have names like “Day in the Hamptons” and “Field of Dreams” and “promote your dog’s optimum health and well-being,” her company says.
Ms. Mohr even designed a candle to address the flatulence of Rufus, her Rhodesian ridgeback. Made with floral ylang-ylang, white tea, myrtle and fennel, the “Fart & Away” candle “won’t completely stop them,” Ms. Mohr says. “But it will help.” The price: $28.
…Canine Caviar Foods says it makes “the only alkaline-based dog food in America that was specifically designed to prevent cancer.” The ingredients include canned beaver, duck and venison tripe for dogs and cats, as well as a variety of “free-range, grass fed buffalo” treats for dogs.
The Honest Kitchen is offering dog food with names like “Zeal” and “Verve” and lists the provenance of the ingredients. There is organic, fair-trade quinoa from Bolivia and “wild, line-caught Icelandic haddock.” Its food is “gently dehydrated” to preserve it.
Here is more, and the sector is booming.
The culture that is Taco Bell (cheap chalupas edition)
This article is superb throughout, here is one excerpt:
Every Taco Bell, McDonald’s (MCD), Wendy’s (WEN), and Burger King is a little factory, with a manager who oversees three dozen workers, devises schedules and shifts, keeps track of inventory and the supply chain, supervises an assembly line churning out a quality-controlled, high-volume product, and takes in revenue of $1 million to $3 million a year, all with customers who show up at the front end of the factory at all hours of the day to buy the product. Taco Bell Chief Executive Officer Greg Creed, a veteran of the detergents and personal products division of Unilever (UL), puts it this way: “I think at Unilever, we had five factories. Well, at Taco Bell today I’ve got 6,000 factories, many of them running 24 hours a day.”
…When I take my place on the line and start to prepare burritos, tacos, and chalupas—they won’t let me near a Crunchwrap Supreme—it is immediately clear that this has been engineered to make the process as simple as possible. The real challenge is the wrapping. Taco Bell once had 13 different wrappers for its products. That has been cut to six by labeling the corners of each wrapper differently. The paper, designed to slide off a stack in single sheets, has to be angled with the name of the item being made at the upper corner. The tortilla is placed in the middle of the paper and the item assembled from there until you fold the whole thing up in the wrapping expediting area next to the grill. “We had so many wrappers before, half a dozen stickers; it was all costing us seconds,” says Harkins. In repeated attempts, I never get the proper item name into the proper place. And my burritos just do not hold together.
With me on the line are Carmen Franco, 60, and Ricardo Alvarez, 36. The best Food Champions can prepare about 100 burritos, tacos, chalupas, and gorditas in less than half an hour, and they have the 78-item menu memorized. Franco and Alvarez are a precise and frighteningly fast team. Ten orders at a time are displayed on a screen above the line, five drive-thrus and five walk-ins. Franco is a blur of motion as she slips out wrapping paper and tortillas, stirs, scoops, and taps, then slides the items down the line while looking up at the screen. The top Food Champions have an ability to scan through the next five orders and identify those that require more preparation steps, such as Grilled Stuffed Burritos and Crunchwrap Supremes, and set those up before returning to simpler tacos and burritos. When Alvarez is bogged down, Franco slips around him and slides Crunchwrap Supremes into their boxes. For this adroit time management and manual dexterity, Taco Bell starts its workers at $8.50 an hour, $1.25 more than minimum wage.
Am I in a Dutch novel?
Erik Voeten, who blogs at the excellent Monkey Cage, writes to me:
I recently read a novel by a well-known Dutch author (well-known in the Netherlands that is) called Arnon Grunberg. The novel is about a Dutchman who leaves his family and fiancee to teach economics at GMU. In the novel, one of the characters is a GMU professor called Elliot Hegel (no relative) who is “an economist with broad interests who also maintains a blog on which he writes about economics and culinary affairs. His hobby is Chinese food.”
Hegel is not a major character, perhaps his major act is to force the Dutch professor to eat pig ears, but I thought you would nonetheless be amused. The novel is called “Huid en haar.” I don’t think this one has been translated, although some of his earlier books were. Here is the NYT review of his debut novel: http://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/02/books/sex-drugs-and-slivovitz.html?src=pm