Thanks for sharing this solid (and concise) paper! I really like research on ways to collect better data.
Compared to grocery stores, “restaurant-style” areas like a college cafeteria seem likely to have artificially inflated prices on meat and meat-free dishes, such that the proportional price difference is smaller (example with fake numbers: chicken is $5/pound and veggies are $2/pound, while a chicken sandwich is $5 and a veggie sandwich $4). I wonder if that difference exists, and if so, whether it inflates meat consumption relative to what students would buy in a grocery store. (Sorry if this was addressed in the paper; if so, I didn’t see it.)
Thank you, Aaron! I think your observation that animal product consumption differs systematically between restaurants, grocery stores and other venues is likely accurate. This study mitigated the problem by selecting for campuses where most of the food purchased can be tracked via the dining services, thus providing a more complete picture of individual diets. Of course, these diets may not be representative of the general population but at least a more complete picture of individual diet reduces selection biases between food venues. That said, we didn’t find many campuses that met those selection criteria, so future field research will likely need to consider the limitation of sampling only a possibly biased portion of diet.
Thanks for sharing this solid (and concise) paper! I really like research on ways to collect better data.
Compared to grocery stores, “restaurant-style” areas like a college cafeteria seem likely to have artificially inflated prices on meat and meat-free dishes, such that the proportional price difference is smaller (example with fake numbers: chicken is $5/pound and veggies are $2/pound, while a chicken sandwich is $5 and a veggie sandwich $4). I wonder if that difference exists, and if so, whether it inflates meat consumption relative to what students would buy in a grocery store. (Sorry if this was addressed in the paper; if so, I didn’t see it.)
Thank you, Aaron! I think your observation that animal product consumption differs systematically between restaurants, grocery stores and other venues is likely accurate. This study mitigated the problem by selecting for campuses where most of the food purchased can be tracked via the dining services, thus providing a more complete picture of individual diets. Of course, these diets may not be representative of the general population but at least a more complete picture of individual diet reduces selection biases between food venues. That said, we didn’t find many campuses that met those selection criteria, so future field research will likely need to consider the limitation of sampling only a possibly biased portion of diet.