Pg. 351 "So how do you truly change a whole country's behavior? Or a whole world's? In the US we reduced smoking and drunk driving. Could we reduce processed food and sugar consumption in favor of Real Food consumption? Well, we don't have to smoke, and we don't have to drink alcohol. But we do have to eat. Still, there are lessons to be learned from tobacco and alcohol control. There are two general strategies: personal intervention (i.e., rehab) and societal intervention (i.e., laws). They're both important, but neither works without the other."
Pg. 353 "We must take a look at what works to reduce the consumption of addictive substances. Research on alcohol policy demonstrates that regulatory controls on pricing, marketing, and distribution are highly effective worldwide in reducing negative impacts of consumption. This strategy has also been effective with tobacco--not perfect, but clearly better. Fewer cases of lunch cancer and emphysema. All of these policies build upon the premise of the Iron Law of Public Health, which clearly states: reducing availability reduces consumption, which reduces health harms. If you make bad stuff (like processed food) harder to get, people won't get sick in the first place.
There are three ways to reduce availability: pricing strategies (e.g., taxation), restriction of access (e.g., blue laws), and interdiction (e.g., banning). o one thinks interdiction is a good idea. We tried prohibition with the Eighteenth Amendment; the Twenty-first Amendment is a testament to how well that strategy worked. But the other two--pricing and restriction of access--are very real, very deployable, and have proven very effective.
Pg. 355 "The prevalence of cigarette smoking in the US reduced from 24 percent in the Clinton era to 15 percent in the Obama era, and cigarette consumption reduced by 37 percent in those same twenty years. Yet, tobacco company revenues increased by 32 percent, and stock prices increased commensurately, because there will always be addicted hardcore customers, and investors know that hedonic substances sell. Addictive substances follow their own economic precepts."
Pg. 356 "By far and away, the most expensive burden to society is sugar. Soft drinks are the consumable with the second-lowest price elasticity, just up from fast food. Raise the price 10 percent, and consumption drops 7.6 percent, mostly among the poor. But an Oxford group modeled that a soda tax would have to be at least 20 percent to significantly reduce general consumption. Chronic metabolic disease (type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, fatty liver disease, chronic renal failure) currently accounts for 75 percent of all healthcare costs ($3.5 trillion); and 75 percent of that is preventable, caused by our sugar overconsumption. Sugar and processed food waste $1.9 trillion in healthcare spending, drives diabetes, dialysis, and disability, and knocks people off over a forty-year period, thus reducing economic productivity and driving our Social Security trust fund to depletion."
Pg. 358 "Corn is highly subsidized. Forty percent of the corn crop is converted to ethanol to extend gasoline, yet this doesn't result in any energy yield and may end up costing more money than it saves. The real reason ethanol in gasoline exists is to create more demand for corn and support price hikes. Of the rest of the corn crop, 36 percent goes to feeding domestic cows, chicken, and pigs (increasing their branched-chain amino acid consumption and therefore their metabolic syndrome that then requires antibiotics). The last 10 percent is exported."
Pg. 360 "Out of all the countries, the US spends the least percent of GDP on food at 7 percent--that's because all the food is commodity crop-based and processed. The next two smallest spenders are the UK at 9 percent and Australia at 11 percent. All three of us are the sickest nations."
Pg. 353 "We must take a look at what works to reduce the consumption of addictive substances. Research on alcohol policy demonstrates that regulatory controls on pricing, marketing, and distribution are highly effective worldwide in reducing negative impacts of consumption. This strategy has also been effective with tobacco--not perfect, but clearly better. Fewer cases of lunch cancer and emphysema. All of these policies build upon the premise of the Iron Law of Public Health, which clearly states: reducing availability reduces consumption, which reduces health harms. If you make bad stuff (like processed food) harder to get, people won't get sick in the first place.
There are three ways to reduce availability: pricing strategies (e.g., taxation), restriction of access (e.g., blue laws), and interdiction (e.g., banning). o one thinks interdiction is a good idea. We tried prohibition with the Eighteenth Amendment; the Twenty-first Amendment is a testament to how well that strategy worked. But the other two--pricing and restriction of access--are very real, very deployable, and have proven very effective.
Pg. 355 "The prevalence of cigarette smoking in the US reduced from 24 percent in the Clinton era to 15 percent in the Obama era, and cigarette consumption reduced by 37 percent in those same twenty years. Yet, tobacco company revenues increased by 32 percent, and stock prices increased commensurately, because there will always be addicted hardcore customers, and investors know that hedonic substances sell. Addictive substances follow their own economic precepts."
Pg. 356 "By far and away, the most expensive burden to society is sugar. Soft drinks are the consumable with the second-lowest price elasticity, just up from fast food. Raise the price 10 percent, and consumption drops 7.6 percent, mostly among the poor. But an Oxford group modeled that a soda tax would have to be at least 20 percent to significantly reduce general consumption. Chronic metabolic disease (type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, fatty liver disease, chronic renal failure) currently accounts for 75 percent of all healthcare costs ($3.5 trillion); and 75 percent of that is preventable, caused by our sugar overconsumption. Sugar and processed food waste $1.9 trillion in healthcare spending, drives diabetes, dialysis, and disability, and knocks people off over a forty-year period, thus reducing economic productivity and driving our Social Security trust fund to depletion."
Pg. 358 "Corn is highly subsidized. Forty percent of the corn crop is converted to ethanol to extend gasoline, yet this doesn't result in any energy yield and may end up costing more money than it saves. The real reason ethanol in gasoline exists is to create more demand for corn and support price hikes. Of the rest of the corn crop, 36 percent goes to feeding domestic cows, chicken, and pigs (increasing their branched-chain amino acid consumption and therefore their metabolic syndrome that then requires antibiotics). The last 10 percent is exported."
Pg. 360 "Out of all the countries, the US spends the least percent of GDP on food at 7 percent--that's because all the food is commodity crop-based and processed. The next two smallest spenders are the UK at 9 percent and Australia at 11 percent. All three of us are the sickest nations."