Sunday, October 14, 2012

What's wrong with Bittman's proposed food label?

Mark Bittman, the NYT food columnist proposes a "dream food label" today. His argument for the label, suggests that only the food industry would oppose his proposal. But I several problems with it. The most important has to do with his example of frozen blueberries. Bittman gives them a score of 5/5 for nutrition but only 2/5 for "Welfare". What's so bad for welfare?  Answer: 
"Although the blueberries are organic, they’re sourced from Chile, where the workers are being paid a dollar a day and little attention is paid to soil quality: 2 for Welfare."  
Stop right there! Before you go any further... Workers paid a dollar per day in Chile? According to World Bank data in 2005 0.7% of Chileans were living on less than a 1.25 per day. And if you take the Chilean minimum wage of 182,000 pesos per month, divided by 30 and multiply by the exchange rate, that works out to $12.74 per day.

But suppose Chilean blueberry farmers do happen to paid as if they lived in Mali. Think about the conclusion Bittman wants you to draw. Because they are impoverished you should buy less from them.  I think Joan Robinson once put it simply: "The only thing worse than being exploited by a capitalist is not being exploited by a capitalist."  If for some strange reason, Chilean blueberry pickers have such lousy opportunities that they are willing to accept a dollar per day, why would it be a good thing to deprive them of what little they have?

Other things bother me on reflection. Why do we care about "foodness" and GMOs except for impacts of these characteristics on nutrition. If a frozen blueberry is just as nutritious as a fresh one (he gives them the full 5 nutrition points), why penalize for freezing? Fresh blueberries aren't available all year so we freeze. What's wrong with that?