Althouse: "Industrial food has manipulated cheap prices for excess profit at excess cost to everyone; low prices do not indicate 'savings' or true inexpensiveness but deception."

July 17, 2014

"Industrial food has manipulated cheap prices for excess profit at excess cost to everyone; low prices do not indicate 'savings' or true inexpensiveness but deception."

"And all the products of industrial food consumption have externalities that would be lessened by a system that makes as its primary goal the links among nutrition, fairness and sustainability."

So ends Mark Bittman's column "The True Cost of a Burger." It's a little hard to understand what "system" he's pushing, perhaps because Step 1 is to get people to internalize the concept that other people's cheap food is costing all of us a lot of money.

98 comments:

Michael P said...: Wanting to define the "links" between three nebulous factors as the proper goal of anything is stereotypically sloppy thinking. (I don't think mere sloppy writing could yield such meaningless prose without accompanying misconception of what a goal is.)

Of course, it just would not do for him to admit that he wants to order people's diets because he knows better than they what they should be eating.; 7/17/14, 7:28 AM
Moose said...: Remember - its always safe to go after the fat people...; 7/17/14, 7:31 AM
PB said...: The true cost of the modern liberal/leftist mind. So damaging it's hard to quantify.; 7/17/14, 7:33 AM
gerry said...: Only by including externalities can you arrive at a true cost.

Nothing is affordable.

Low prices are addictive! We must ban low prices!

These Neopuritans are a pain in the ass.; 7/17/14, 7:33 AM
Jessica said...: Industrialized farming and the resulting cheapness of food has been one of the great technological advances of the last century and has resulted in hundreds of millions of healthier, more nourished lives, especially among the poor of the world.; 7/17/14, 7:37 AM
Bob R said...: Do you have a pseudoscience tag?; 7/17/14, 7:40 AM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: One you externalize the costs of individual heathcare then everything everyone does is everyone else's business.

The ACA added to this, but we were already far down this path with Medicare, Medicaid, tax incentives for insurance over out-of-pocket spending, etc.; 7/17/14, 7:41 AM
Christopher said...: When can I expect the article containing a "commonsense" plan that coincidentally gives the federal govt. vast new authority?; 7/17/14, 7:44 AM
George M. Spencer said...: "Cheeseburgers are the coal of the food world," the author writes.

What a bunch of misery loving organic-tofu eating grinds these prissy lefties are.

The real scam is "organic" food. Prey on people's fears, and you can take their money and win their votes.; 7/17/14, 7:46 AM
Henry said...: His obesity as externality argument is an oxymoron. By that argument ALL cheap calories, in any form, are dangerous to the commonweal; the cheaper you make each calorie, the greater the external costs. More is less. Cheap is expensive. Surplus is dearth.

One gets the impression that Bittman pines for the eras of famine, when people stayed skinny from want, and died quickly when they were supposed to.

The thread that links nutrition, fairness and sustainability in Bittman's system is scarcity.; 7/17/14, 7:52 AM
J. Farmer said...: Bittman makes a classic blunder here. Decreasing the incidence of obesity-related illness and thus prolonging lifespans does NOT lower total healthcare costs. It increases them.; 7/17/14, 7:55 AM
chillblaine said...: If you are against cheeseburgers then don't have one.; 7/17/14, 8:03 AM
MadisonMan said...: I'll be sure to Check my Privilege before ordering one next time.; 7/17/14, 8:06 AM
Seeing Red said...: The party of death. Stalin and Mao would be proud.

Can't u feel how much he cares?; 7/17/14, 8:06 AM
Scott M said...: fairness and sustainability

It's gotten to the point that whenever I see these two words used like this in an sentence about policy, I can bet money that the paragraphs to follow will contain an idea so good, it must be made mandatory.; 7/17/14, 8:08 AM
Bill said...: His whole enterprise is a fool's errand, but to play along:

Since cheeseburgers kill people early (he adds on health costs), then the cheeseburgers save us with via the early mortality of the reckless human breathing, carbon foot-stomping class, not to mention shortened social security payouts.; 7/17/14, 8:12 AM
Marcus Carman said...: Pretty clear to me what his bent is. He's a clear cut anti-capitalist. He's masking his detest in the guise of being a healthy eating advocate. In reality, he's just another left wing, elitist punk.; 7/17/14, 8:12 AM
Sofa King said...: Industrialized farming and the resulting cheapness of food has been one of the great technological advances of the last century and has resulted in hundreds of millions of healthier, more nourished lives, especially among the poor of the world.

Precisely why the left hates it. The well-fed are distinctly not prone to revolution. It's so much harder selling the failure of capitalism to people with plenty to eat.; 7/17/14, 8:16 AM
SomeoneHasToSayIt said...: The cause of the obesity crisis is simply this: the people and the food industry following the Big Government food pyramid guidelines.

The food pyramid, a progressive political creation based on no science whatsoever, is not just wrong, but as wrong as wrong can be. If followed, it CAUSES obesity.

Imagine that. Big Government gets involved and the problem gets worse. Unprecedented!

The only problem with the cheeseburger, is the bun.; 7/17/14, 8:19 AM
Tibore said...: Sloppy thinking indeed! So many of those "externalities" he mentioned are accounted for in other ways. You don't include the cost of that thrown away wrapper, for example, because waste collection costs are borne elsewhere by another system and are hardly unaccounted for. On the contrary, such waste collection forms a part of a whole other part of the economy, a necessary part even outside the collection of burger wrappers.

Sloppy and stupid thinking on that columnist's part. He starts with the basic and correct stance that so much nowadays is interconnected, but somehow finds a way to run off in the absolutely wrong direction with it. For an NYT columnist, that just figures. Good opinion writing hasn't existed for a long time now there.; 7/17/14, 8:22 AM
Mark said...: Bitman's problems are the First World Problems of the First World.

Of, For, and By the One Percent.; 7/17/14, 8:22 AM
bearing said...: I take it his idea is to raise the prices of poor people's food so that we can lower the cost of rich people's health insurance.; 7/17/14, 8:25 AM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: Damn. Now I'm craving cheeseburgers, and it's still two and a half hours 'til lunchtime.; 7/17/14, 8:27 AM
Sebastian said...: "One you externalize the costs of individual heathcare then everything everyone does is everyone else's business."

Correct. "Externalities" by design foster more big-brother control. Solution: a system that internalizes externalities. Everyone buy their own heath insurance or pay out of pocket. Providers not obligated to serve those who can't pay. Employers allowed not to hire the obese.

CO2 output in beef production counts as a real externality. Solution: carbon tax. To avoid feeding the beast: only in exchange for zero corporate income tax rate, low and flat income tax rate, general consumption tax. Deal?

I look forward to reading more articles in the NYT about the "externalities" of babies born to single mothers, unaccompanied minors crossing the border, the cultivation and sale of pot, boondoggle public transportation projects, the sexual habits of various groups, and so on.; 7/17/14, 8:27 AM
Peter said...: Apparently it's not enough that electricity should become a luxury good. Now food, too, should be made more expensive (with more government payments to help people afford it, I suppose).

For practically all of human history, merely obtaining enough food calories per day has been a horrific challenge for most. And now the problem is that food is ... too cheap??

What would it take to make this guy's day- crop failure leading to widespread famine? A mysterious virus that kills off 90% of humans from Earth? 100%?

__

(Although I'd have to agree with 'Ignorance is Bliss' in that I suddenly become a whole lot more interested in what you're eating when I have to pay for your medical problems.)

(And it's at least possible that some manufactured foods have become superstimuli, foods that taste so good that some will lack the willpower to avoid overindulging in. But what's the alternative? A world in which a sour-faced government employee hands you your daily ration of sustainably harvested seaweed?); 7/17/14, 8:27 AM
Rusty said...: "Only by including externalities can you arrive at a true cost."

I'm pretty sure the manufacturer has taken all that into account when devising their pricing structure.

However I'm sure one of our resident progressive economic experts will disabuse me of this opinion.; 7/17/14, 8:29 AM
Peter said...: I just had to click on the link at the bottom of the "True Cost of A Burger" article to the next NYT article, "The Dangers of Private Planes."

Apparently they crash too often.

And, indeed, general aviation does have a somewhat high accident rate. Yet (perhaps due to the ever-rising price of small airplanes) the number of private pilots seems to be declining over time. And somehow we've lived with general aviation, and its accidents, for a long time now.

The New York Times makes me think of that definition of a Puritan as someone who's outraged that someone, somewhere, might be having fun.; 7/17/14, 8:32 AM
Seeing Red said...: That's why I'm starting to eat burger bowls. Lettuce is the bun, tho sometimes I just gotta have a bun!; 7/17/14, 8:35 AM
Scott M said...: The food pyramid, a progressive political creation based on no science whatsoever, is not just wrong, but as wrong as wrong can be. If followed, it CAUSES obesity.

Fair enough. I've heard/read this assertion quite a bit in recent years. Can you post a link or two that backs it up?; 7/17/14, 8:39 AM
Todd said...: SomeoneHasToSayIt said...

The only problem with the cheeseburger, is the bun.
7/17/14, 8:19 AM

I agree! The government should require that henceforth all burgers only be served on a pretzel bun!; 7/17/14, 8:51 AM
Michael K said...: "The cause of the obesity crisis is simply this: the people and the food industry following the Big Government food pyramid guidelines."

The left hated Dr Atkins who promoted a diet that was heavy on protein and even fat in the 1970s because they satisfy appetite and do not stimulate insulin which stimulates hunger.

When he died from a fall on the ice, he was vilified all over again by lefties who insisted he died fat. Carbohydrates are the cause of obesity more than cheeseburgers. If you want to make the cheeseburger more healthy, leave off the bun.

The organic food Nazis are convinced that only veggies should be eaten, especially arugula. I was not surprised at the source of that piece.; 7/17/14, 8:52 AM
rhhardin said...: Taranto handled this yesterday. You have to consider the externalities of what you eat instead of a cheeseburger.

Life is externalities. There are also internalities, namely how you contribute.

If you're average, you contribute more than you take, if the economy is growing. That's why it's growing.; 7/17/14, 8:52 AM
Henry said...: There is a kind of car-crash fascination with watching pie-in-the-sky policy arguments take shape. They are attractive precisely of their abstraction -- in the absence of specifics, these great schemes coalesce into great billows whose imaginary landscapes float high above the dirt of reality.

As SomeoneHasToSayIt said, Bittman talks on and on about cheeseburgers and never mentions the bun.

Mention the bun and you might have to mention corn syrup. Mention corn syrup and you might have to mention corn subsidies. Mention corn subsidies and you might have an actual, specific, policy proposal at hand.

How about this, Mark Bittman. You build a coalition to successfully eliminate corn subsidies, then we'll talk about reforming the entire agricultural system.; 7/17/14, 8:52 AM
sean said...: You know how--this is addressed to the lawyers in the room--there are those tax protestor and militia types who make legal arguments, where they tack together legal phrases and concepts in a way that might like a legal argument, if you weren't really listening or didn't know anything, but that doesn't actually make any sense? Mark Bittman uses economic concepts and language the same way.; 7/17/14, 9:00 AM
KLDAVIS said...: Opened article.
Searched for Malthus. [No hits.]
Closed article.; 7/17/14, 9:02 AM
Anonymous said...: Bring on the Soylent Green.; 7/17/14, 9:05 AM
CStanley said...: Up next: the true cost of artificial birth control.

Oh wait, he's a lefty so sexual behavior is only personal and should be completely subsidized.; 7/17/14, 9:06 AM
Joan said...: The biggest problem with Bittman's column is that it sounds all official and science-y. Many people will not or can not understand that it's all fluff and no substance. He makes so many assumptions and sprinkles in some statistics to make it sound, well, sound -- and all of it is a web of tenuous assertions that don't hold up under scrutiny.

Bittman assigns all of the fast food calories consumed to obesity. Shouldn't it just be, you know, the extra calories? Because we all need to eat to live. I'd tag soda and french fry calories as being unnecessary, rather than going after the burgers, which have a lot more nutritional value. Unfortunately french fries and soda have too few externalities to justify Bittman and an intern spending a whole year (!!!) on this idea, so he stuck with his original nonsensical premise.; 7/17/14, 9:11 AM
Strelnikov said...: Oh, come on.

The "system" he's pushing is government control of the food supply. This is the NYT, after all. Have they proposed any other solution, for any problem, in the last 30 years?; 7/17/14, 9:11 AM
Anonymous said...: So far as the "externality" of health effects of eating fast food is concerned, it would be straightforward, if politically difficult, to internalize nearly all of it. Do away with health insurance for routine health expenses; and for catastrophic expenses, which include some illnesses associated with burger consumption, have insurance sold to individuals at actuarially fair prices, taking pre-existing conditions and health risks into account. At that point people will be paying the statistically expected costs of their own health care, which will include the indirect medical costs of their burgers.

Conversely, health risks are a major source of externalities under an involuntarily pooled system, such as Britain's National Health Service. I doubt that it's a coincidence that Britain has the "fat and fags" movement, which advocates denying health care (other that treatment for immediately life-threatening emergencies) to people who imperil their own health by smoking or by being too fat—because the taxpayers are paying for their health care and resent people who add to their burdens.; 7/17/14, 9:12 AM
traditionalguy said...: The Green religion is going full force now teaching and preaching asceticism and guilt for consumption of good high protein food.

The first target will be making socially unacceptable (and abhorrent to yoga practitioners) eaters of beef. Beef happens to be the best food on earth for concentrated protein that has a medicine's effect on the weak of mind and body.

So beef prices that are already going up by intentionally raised energy costs and the pumped dollar inflation can be explained away to the over educated fools as a blessing and not the curse that it is.

More directly, well fed people don't usually join revolutions. And well fed people are strong in their immune systems. That cannot be allowed to continue if the Green movement's true goal is a revolution and a population die off from newly appearing drug resistant diseases.

Malthusian reasoning is only the ideology for Murder. Who needs Death Panels when you can take away food like the British Malthusians righteously did to the Irish after the potato blight...a third of the population starved and a third fled the country.

The British aristocrats then took land back from the dirty peasants who could no longer be a problem to govern. And it only took two years.; 7/17/14, 9:14 AM
Big Mike said...: Would he be happier, do you think, if the cheeseburger were made with some brie and arugula instead of American cheese and iceberg lettuce?; 7/17/14, 9:14 AM
traditionalguy said...: Do you have a Malthusian murderers tag?; 7/17/14, 9:15 AM
Mark said...: The thread that links nutrition, fairness and sustainability in Bittman's system is scarcity.

Scarcity also plays a part in the aesthetics (and the corollary "authenticity") of food for foodies. One of the shibboleths of the gourmet set is that all great cuisines have their roots in peasantry food. Coq au Vin evolved from a peasant technique to render an otherwise useless old rooster palatable. Classical southeast Asian cooking and eating styles evolved from a scarcity of cooking fuel (!) combined with the need to cater to a population with very bad teeth. (European peasantry tended not to outlive their teeth; not for nothing did the Asians consider Europeans to be barbaric.)

Serious foodies traditionally sneered at the foods developed in cultures of relative wealth; a true gourmet bacon cheeseburger is more of a culinary joke than an object of gustatory art. For the 1%, it's classless unless made of wagyu beef, Gorau Glas, fine prosciutto, and locally-sourced micro greens and heirloom tomatoes. And even then, as I said, it's considered an exercise in irony.

So in a way I suppose Bitman is thinking of future generations. If future Bitmans are going to be able to enjoy nouvelle gourmet foods, necessity dictates a return to the days and ways of peasantry.; 7/17/14, 9:18 AM
Conserve Liberty said...: The cause of the obesity crisis is simply this: the people and the food industry following the Big Government food pyramid guidelines.

The food pyramid, a progressive political creation based on no science whatsoever, is not just wrong, but as wrong as wrong can be. If followed, it CAUSES obesity.

Imagine that. Big Government gets involved and the problem gets worse. Unprecedented!

I will note that the graphical hockey stick starting around 1965 that denotes the onset of societal obesity seems oddly associated with the campaign to end smoking cigarettes.

Externalization, anyone?; 7/17/14, 9:25 AM
Anonymous said...: Whatever the product, some costs are borne by producers, but others, called external costs — “externalities,” as economists call them — are not; nor are they represented in the price.

Wrong: A cost only counts as external if it is not borne by any of the parties to a transaction-- not just the seller. The buyer is already taking the cost of obesity into account, since he will have to bear this himself; it is not an external cost that needs to be internalized.; 7/17/14, 9:25 AM
NCMoss said...: I'm always surprised that one of the more obvious solutions is never promoted; that is, limiting the unhealthy food types that can be purchased with food stamps. They already ban alcohol and tobacco. Why not pork rinds and Mountain Dew?; 7/17/14, 9:26 AM
Alexander said...: Nothing pisses off the right-thinking classes more than the idea that somewhere, a peasant is eating meat.

Always, always, always: it's progs suggesting that we become vegetarians, or that we eat 'insect burgers', or that cows are the worst thing to happen to the planet since people, or that ranchers turning barely marginal scrubland into delicious beef at a time when prices are climbing is something that needs to be stopped.

Meat isn't for the little people.; 7/17/14, 9:28 AM
Eric said...: And thus the NYT adds another lifetime tenured wise man to its pages.; 7/17/14, 9:31 AM
FleetUSA said...: Another progressive wanting to be recognized pushing for the whole litany of progressive desires: climate change, organic food, equality of incomes, etc etc.

To do this he creates a Rube Goldberg of relationships and economics which as he admits can't quite be done. But he wins a progressive star for trying and won't end up in a gulag.; 7/17/14, 9:37 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: Industrialized farming and the resulting cheapness of food has been one of the great technological advances of the last century and has resulted in hundreds of millions of healthier, more nourished lives, especially among the poor of the world.

This underestimates the benefits. It is billions, not hundreds of millions. We have had scares for a long time about running out of food to feed all the people on the planet (ignoring that the world population is on schedule to peak). And, our ability to increase yields and the like has more than kept pace throughout history.

But, this does remind me of a video I saw a couple days ago about Israel. The Palestinians want "their" land back. BUT, if the Jews in Israel would remove everything that they added over the last century and maybe quarter there, along with themselves, many of the remaining Palestinians would starve, if they didn't die of dehydration first. They turned an area that historically supported maybe a hundred thousand to one that supports 7-8-9 million, both in terms of water and food. What the Palestinians are clamoring for are the fruits of Jewish labor, which has not been uncommon for Jews throughout the last millennium or two.; 7/17/14, 9:41 AM
Nonapod said...: We are currently living through the greatest era in the greatest nation in the history of humanity. We live longer, healthier, happier lives than at any other time or place in history of our species. An estimated 110 billion homosapiens have lived and died, the overwhelming majority of those lived nasty, brutish, and short lives. We are in the top 1% of 1% of all the humans ever. Compared to the other 99.99%, we have a hilarious over abundance of food, shelter, clothing, water, healthcare, and freedom.

And yet, despite all this, some of us are very unhappy and want to be able to dictate how other people should live.

Why are we humans so obsessed with control? Why do we crave control so much that we're willing to exaggerate, lie, and obfuscate in order to achieve it?; 7/17/14, 9:48 AM
Freder Frederson said...: Mention the bun and you might have to mention corn syrup. Mention corn syrup and you might have to mention corn subsidies. Mention corn subsidies and you might have an actual, specific, policy proposal at hand.

You know, corn subsidies also make beef cheap.; 7/17/14, 9:49 AM
SomeoneHasToSayIt said...: Scott M said...
The food pyramid, a progressive political creation based on no science whatsoever, is not just wrong, but as wrong as wrong can be. If followed, it CAUSES obesity.

Fair enough. I've heard/read this assertion quite a bit in recent years. Can you post a link or two that backs it up?

Sure. Here you go.

Read this book

Follow this Blog; 7/17/14, 9:49 AM
Paul said...: "The left hated Dr Atkins who promoted a diet that was heavy on protein and even fat in the 1970s because they satisfy appetite and do not stimulate insulin which stimulates hunger"

All true except the part about satisfying one's appetite. Ever tried this diet? No matter how much fat and protein you eat you are still very uncomfortably hungry as the craving for carbs is still there.; 7/17/14, 9:55 AM
n.n said...: He could be describing the price of Obamacare; the hidden costs, both monetary and environmental, of "green" technologies; or the insidious corruption sponsored by the social welfare state. He may also be describing the all too common speculation and leverage of markets and especially government. He may also have noticed the consequences to social cohesion of the civil rights racket. Not to mention the demotion of fitness promoted by family "planning", including: contraception and elective abortion. A lot of deceptions wrapped in a basket of euphemisms and ulterior motives for profit.; 7/17/14, 10:00 AM
SGT Ted said...: Another thinly veiled attack on capitalism, posing as morality.

"Cheap food is really Bad For Us! We need to make food expensive, so I can have a good feeling.

Oh and fuck the poor, BTW. Let them eat Soylent Green."

What a fucktard.

Leftists are the HIV of the political world.; 7/17/14, 10:02 AM
YoungHegelian said...: @Tom G

They already ban alcohol and tobacco. Why not pork rinds and Mountain Dew?

Oh, Oh! So, now, it's OK for the welfare agencies to discriminate against Southerners, izzit?

Yes, I'm joking....

Actually, pork rinds are much beloved by folks on the Atkins diet because they are completely free of carbohydrates. The barbeque-flavored variety, however, do tend to smell like a bag of pig farts. My wife refers to them as divorce court in a bag.; 7/17/14, 10:05 AM
Matt Sablan said...: "The reality is different, as we begin to understand the extent of the financial and economic costs wrought on our society from years of eating dangerously."

-- The answer then is for the rich to subsidize kale and other healthy food for the poor. Let's put an extremely high tax on healthy luxury foods, fine wines, dinner at 4-star or higher restaurants, so that we can help poor people get better food at a more reasonable cost.

If you can pay $100 for a bottle of wine, surely you can pay $120 for that bottle so someone else doesn't have to drink Coca Cola.; 7/17/14, 10:10 AM
Chuck said...: Now that Mark Bittman has calculated the carbon footprint of a cheeseburger, Frank Rich can get to work on the carbon footprint of the original Broadway run of "The Producers." And after that, Maureen Dowd can calculate the carbon footprint of Obama's vacation on Martha's Vineyard, followed by Thomas Friedman calculating the carbon footprint of Davos.; 7/17/14, 10:18 AM
traditionalguy said...: Let them eat ethanol.; 7/17/14, 10:19 AM
Anonymous said...: I recently discovered there's a word for this that's won fairly wide acceptance: orthorexia.; 7/17/14, 10:19 AM
n.n said...: While processed foods are less nutritionally efficient, they do have a value. The morale of the story is to consume in moderation.

Oh, and if you are a couch potato, reduce your consumption of carbohydrates. The demand for fast energy does not exist and your body will seek to remediate your bad habits.; 7/17/14, 10:25 AM
Mr Wibble said...: I will note that the graphical hockey stick starting around 1965 that denotes the onset of societal obesity seems oddly associated with the campaign to end smoking cigarettes.

It's also when the rest of the free world finally pulled itself out of the economic hole from the Great Depression and WWII. Penicillin, modern waste management and clean water, and increased farm outputs meant that people were eating more and living lives free from parasites and diseases.; 7/17/14, 10:33 AM
dbp said...: "You know, corn subsidies also make beef cheap"

Not exactly. Corn is subsidized in the sense that demand is artificially increased via ethanol fuel mandates as well as restrictions on the import of sugar and ethanol. This is undoubtedly good for corn farmers, less clear that it helps consumers of corn.; 7/17/14, 10:41 AM
Joan said...: Paul - usually, the craving for carbs disappears after just a few days of avoiding them. If you're still craving carbs on an induction-style (very low carb, ~20g/day) diet, there's something else going on.

(one of) The idea(s) is that you break your dependence on carbs during the induction period, then you add some back to your diet to find what you, personally, can tolerate without falling back into a gaining weight, craving carbs state. It requires mindful eating and paying attention to how your body is responding.; 7/17/14, 10:50 AM
Alexander said...: Mr. Sablan,

Unfortunately, there is still every chance that the prole, clinging to either his ignorance or bitterness or racism, will still drink the Coca Cola.

Even worse, he may genuinely enjoy it.

No, I'm afraid it's much better to simply ban the masses from drinking the Cola and call it a day.; 7/17/14, 10:50 AM
Michael K said...: "All true except the part about satisfying one's appetite. Ever tried this diet?"

Yes. The diet includes some carb substitutes and "The South Beach Diet" was a modification that updated some of Atkins recommendations. I suspect the blogress follows something like it when we see her cooking bacon and eggs for breakfast. Nobody says you can't eat anything but protein and fat. Carbs should be kept to a minimum. Why do you think Mexicans and Italians are fat ? Pasta and tortillas.; 7/17/14, 10:53 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: Serious foodies traditionally sneered at the foods developed in cultures of relative wealth; a true gourmet bacon cheeseburger is more of a culinary joke than an object of gustatory art. For the 1%, it's classless unless made of wagyu beef, Gorau Glas, fine prosciutto, and locally-sourced micro greens and heirloom tomatoes. And even then, as I said, it's considered an exercise in irony.

I am glad then that I am not a dues paying member of the 1%, or at least not any more (I think that I made it for a short time a couple years ago, but not sure). I do love my burgers. My significant other does this thing of mixing bison with maybe a little pork, and stuffing the patties with blue cheese. Then, throw on the bacon from her ex's farm. Most of the garnishes come from there too. The place we clash though is on buns. And, Heinz Ketchup (despite John Kerry's association with such). She has never liked bread, which is part of why she still has that figure. I compromise with the highest fiber buns I can find. Oh, forgot the cheese (ignoring the blue cheese in the center of the burgers). Maybe. Maybe not. As for the bison - really not that expensive if you live in the right part of the country, which we do. A buck or two more per pound than lean beef. I will confidently assert that those burgers of hers are better than almost any meal I have ever had in a restaurant, regardless of how much it cost.

Still, I find medium fast burgers often better than burgers from somewhat expensive restaurants. Five Guys. Smash Burgers. Even In-and-Out. I even treat myself to a double Whopper every couple months. Maybe it is all the bad things that they do, esp. with Whoppers, Big Macs (which I love too - but only eat once every year or two), etc. Chefs at expensive restaurants often seem to have a hard time cooking burgers completely through, without drying them out. Not so with faster food.; 7/17/14, 11:01 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: If you can pay $100 for a bottle of wine, surely you can pay $120 for that bottle so someone else doesn't have to drink Coca Cola.

Except some of us have such refined tastes that we actually prefer Coca Cola (or, in my case, Pepsi) to that $100 bottle of wine. They have weekly wine tastings in the next town over, and I keep thinking that I need to become more sophisticated. But, never quite make it over there.; 7/17/14, 11:07 AM
gerry said...: Why are we humans so obsessed with control? Why do we crave control so much that we're willing to exaggerate, lie, and obfuscate in order to achieve it?

Concupiscence.; 7/17/14, 11:10 AM
Anonymous said...: When you go out for a burger, it's "nice" if you can think about how much your cheap meal costs your neighbors.

Other people's cheap insurance that does not cover Sandra Flukes' condoms "is costing all of us a lot of money." So we are mandated to buy Obamacare or Obama-approved health care.

"other people's cheap food is costing all of us a lot of money." So we should be mandated to buy non-processed "fresh" food.

Other people's convenience driving their own cars "is costing all of us a lot of money." So we should be mandated to take public transportation.

Other people's "excess profit" is costing all of us a lot of money, so we must mandate how much profit a business should make.

Mark Bitter-man's excessive pay for writing excessively silly drivels is costing all of us excessively, so he should be mandated to "give back" his excessive pay to us.; 7/17/14, 11:14 AM
Matt Sablan said...: "Unfortunately, there is still every chance that the prole, clinging to either his ignorance or bitterness or racism, will still drink the Coca Cola."

-- Clearly, the answer is to tax that too.; 7/17/14, 11:18 AM
virgil xenophon said...: SofaKing@08:16am/

Yes, someone once said that the reason America has never adopted a truly full-bore "Socialist Party" in American politics--especially in the days of Eugen V. Debs (who ran for President four times on the Socialist ticket, garnered millions of votes and was possible the greatest orator in the hist of the Republic) in the early 1900s--was because of "the ready availability and low price of beef-steak."; 7/17/14, 11:42 AM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: Bittman is actually a very good cookbook author. I bought his How To Cook Everything (which contains burgers, fwiw) a few years ago and use it all the time. Not absolutely foolproof, but pretty close.

That said:

Henry, yes, all cheap calories are bad, and the cheaper they are, the worse. It's plum embarrassing for us to have the fattest poor people on the planet.

Various & sundry, yes, if the obese and/or diabetic die earlier than others, then from a pure actuarial standpoint -- which is what this talk of "externalities" is all about, lest we forget -- the rest of us are better off. At least presumptively so, anyway. (What happens when diabetic care results in people living for decades at great expense, as many already do?)

Tibore, great points. I notice that when Bittman talks about the discarded burger wrapper and blames that "externality" on the burger, he's eliding the class argument that he's actually making: People who eat fast food are the sort of people who throw their wrappers on the ground. Which is true, but damned embarrassing.; 7/17/14, 11:45 AM
Paul said...: "Paul - usually, the craving for carbs disappears after just a few days of avoiding them. If you're still craving carbs on an induction-style (very low carb, ~20g/day) diet, there's something else going on.

(one of) The idea(s) is that you break your dependence on carbs during the induction period, then you add some back to your diet to find what you, personally, can tolerate without falling back into a gaining weight, craving carbs state. It requires mindful eating and paying attention to how your body is responding."

I guess I made it to about the eighth or ninth day until I couldn't stand it anymore. Plus I was weight training and was horrified to see my maximums decline, so I bailed. Turns out you need carbs to build and maintain muscle. Now I just try to eat less and mountain bike more. I was never fat, but I wanted to get my body fat from 17% to 12% or so.; 7/17/14, 11:45 AM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: rhhardin (re Taranto), exactly. It's not as though if every burger joint in the country disappeared tomorrow, we'd not eat something else instead. And as the "something else" would either be similar (hot dogs, tacos, cheap Chinese food, whatever), or much less nutritious (Ramen comes to mind), or more expensive (nearly everything else), there are more and different externalities to factor in.

Various & sundry, re carbs/"the bun": I think Bittman would agree with you. (Esp. Henry, wrt HFCS.) He doesn't mention the lettuce, onion, and tomato, either, for which you might count yourselves thankful.

Bruce Hayden, re: Israeli improvements to the "occupied territories" -- I remember when the Israeli settlers (all 7500 or so) left Gaza. The Palestinians stipulated, or tried to stipulate, not only that all the Jews were to get out, but that they were to leave all their houses and other infrastructure behind intact. I think that, for the most part, this was done.; 7/17/14, 11:59 AM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: Three more comments for Mr Bittman:

1) Fuck You.
2) Just got back from lunch, McDonald's 2 Cheeseburger extra value meal ( includes fries and a coke ) because Fuck You.
3) Since I would not have gone out for the cheeseburgers if I had not read that column, I think we can all agree that any externalities from those burgers are in fact externalities from your column, so again, Fuck You.; 7/17/14, 12:06 PM
virgil xenophon said...: Michelle Dulak Thomson/

Except for the fact the Palestinians immediately smashed all the extensive green-house complexes which the Israelies left in good faith (and which provided for a large part of self-sustaining food supplies) that could have been used to improve the well-being of the Palestinians. Typical Arab cultural propensity: stepping all over one's fore-skin..; 7/17/14, 12:14 PM
Henry said...: Freder wrote: You know, corn subsidies also make beef cheap.

Exactly. And yet Bittman avoids the pertinent policy argument.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...
Bittman is actually a very good cookbook author.

Agreed. I prefer Bittman's type of food to fast food any day. His "The Minimalist" columns are superb.; 7/17/14, 12:28 PM
Edmund said...: ScottM

I don't have any links handy, but there is evidence that obesity and adult onset diabetes could be a literal epidemic. Recent lab studies in rats have identified enteric bacteria that can cause weight gain in rats, even when fed a diet that in other rats doesn't cause weight gain. The bacteria also caused pre-diabetic metabolic changes. There was also an animated map of the spread of obesity in the US over time, showing it starting in the deep South and spreading -just like an epidemic.

There also was a recent, large study that indicated that carb consumption is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Fat was not.; 7/17/14, 12:41 PM
Anonymous said...: Paul said:

"All true except the part about satisfying one's appetite. Ever tried this diet? No matter how much fat and protein you eat you are still very uncomfortably hungry as the craving for carbs is still there."

This was not my experience. By the second week I was not hungry at all and would eat when others around me ate but if left to my own devices I wouldn't. I started eating carbs again for the variety of flavors but still eat mostly meat and eggs. I'm 61 years old, weigh 165 and stand 5'9". I walk daily do physical work, and maintain my property.; 7/17/14, 1:00 PM
chuck said...: Makes me wonder about the true costs of reading the NYTimes. Mental obesity and ideational flatulence are probably the least of them.; 7/17/14, 1:13 PM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Ever tried this diet? No matter how much fat and protein you eat you are still very uncomfortably hungry as the craving for carbs is still there.

Yes...for the first week or so. After that it becomes a dullish memory of carbs that can be easily ignored. Carb-cravings are amazingly strong that first week though, requiring a very similar effort to the physical and psychological struggle to cease smoking. And as Ann Althouse has noted in her personal life, the pounds stay away -- until you break the fast and gorge on carbs. Then your body rushes to create that comfy old fat layer again.

Dieting doesn't work. Only making changes in your daily routine to which you can stick keeps unwanted pounds off.; 7/17/14, 1:19 PM
ALP said...: Apparently, Bittman didn't see the recent articles detailing the fact that the rise in obesity is due to a dramatic decrease in exercise, not an increase in calories:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/279281.php; 7/17/14, 2:38 PM
gadfly said...: Mr. Bittman must have the IQ of a piss ant. Liberal values suddenly are more important than the commercial commodity futures that, with a whole lot of push from fake USDA manipulations, sets our base food prices. But we should be forewarned that this incredible power in the hands of our ruling class may soon make brussels sprout (not vice versa) more valuable than say watermellon.

I suppose that Congress can also help Bittman out by spreading some pork around - bad pun intended.; 7/17/14, 2:46 PM
Jason said...: "Nutrition is not a private matter!" -Hitler Youth manual; 7/17/14, 2:56 PM
HoodlumDoodlum said...: I count anything I don't like or agree with as an externality, and it turns out my cost-benefit calculations always tell me that what I want to do is the best option.
Instead of recognizing the choices, values, and agency of others with whom I disagree as exogenous I treat them as merely another variable to be altered at (my) whim. Turns out everyone else should change what they do (and like, and buy, and say)!

In all seriousness, Norman Borlaug is a hero, maybe the greatest (individual) hero in the last 100 years.; 7/17/14, 3:19 PM
HoodlumDoodlum said...: By the way, including externalities in any economic analysis is imporant and the idea of an externality being included in the visible cost of a good or service in order to corectly value that thing is valid and widely accepted. What's different here is the onesidedness (there are both positive and negative externalites!), degree to which individual agency is ignored, and the fact that the NYTimes would not dare to allow reasoning like this under their banner unless the conclusion fits with their preconceived moral judgment.

Example: Illegal immigrant (undocument minor migrants if you prefer). We pay $ to feed, house, and clothe them when they arrive, of course, and we can count the state spending to their benefit (welfare, health care, increased school costs, etc). That is the price of illegal immigration, but not its cost. The lower-performing and more crowded schools hurt eductation; the presence of lower-priced labor depresses other wages; the increased number of people in given area imposes costs in the form of more crowding (commutes, public transit, housing)...and so on. If you only look at that "side" and include those very real costs it will be apparent that we can't afford to permit illegal immigration. Do you think the NYTimes would publish such an analysis?
How about something more abstract, like, I dunno, a cultural shift towards sexual permissiveness ("being more sex positive"), or access to cheap contraception (or abortion)--something like that. Imagine that the lack of (societal-imposed) shame increases the number of sexual partners young people have, increases the prevalance of certain STDs, and increases out of wedlock births. Add up the costs of those changes--would the NYTimes let you argue that "slut-shaming" should be encouraged, since it's cost-effective?; 7/17/14, 3:38 PM
HoodlumDoodlum said...: Oh he gives away the game here: "So it’s not a stretch to say that the external costs of burgers may be as high as, or even outweigh, the “benefits” (if indeed there are any other than profits)."

Do you like cheeseburgers? Do you enjoy cheap food prices and abundant, you know, stuff to eat (unbelievably cheap and unthinkably abundant compared to all of human history? Guess what, YOU DON'T count.

Artificially inflating the costs on one side and not considering ANY benefits on the other side (due to your own unsupported bias)? That's not econcomics, bro.; 7/17/14, 3:48 PM
HoodlumDoodlum said...: This one's pretty good, too: "the cost of food stamps and other public welfare programs made necessary in part by the ultralow wages paid at most fast-food operations;"

Yeah, if only those fast-food operations didn't exist they wouldn't pay workers ultra-low wages, so those workers wouldn't require public welfare spending, see, because they'd have money they'd get from, you know, earning it in all those high-paying jobs they'd have if fast-food operations weren't around. By that logic, of course, any given employeer imposes an externality on society by not paying any given employee more. Hell, if the NYTimes charged $10 more for its subscriptions it could pay delivery people $x more and stop imposing all these public welfare costs on the rest of us. Better yet if the company was shut down those ultra-low deliveryperson wages wouldn't exist at all. Hell yeah, shut 'er down, right genius?; 7/17/14, 3:54 PM
Wen said...: Red; 7/17/14, 4:02 PM
HoodlumDoodlum said...: This could actually be a fun game.
1. Take something the NYTimes crowd holds sacred
2. Attribute all possible external costs of that thing
3. Conclude it should be banned, taxed, or heavily regulated
[4. Be accused of crimethink]

So, ok, cheap (free or subsidized!) contraception makes casual sex less costly. Hell, is low-cost sex any less addictive than low-cost cheeseburgers? Lowering the cost of casual sex leads at the margin to more casual sex, and the more casual sex there is the more "bad sex" (to use Prof. A's concept) or "sexual assault (NYTimes') there is likely to be. Thus the low price of contraception ignores the cost of increased sexual assault. Tax the Pill! Sandra Fluke doesn't want more sexual assualt, does she?

Try it with gay marriage, affirmative action; you name it. See how quickly you're published!; 7/17/14, 4:39 PM
Robert Cook said...: "Three more comments for Mr Bittman:

"1) Fuck You.
"2) Just got back from lunch, McDonald's 2 Cheeseburger extra value meal ( includes fries and a coke ) because Fuck You.
"3) Since I would not have gone out for the cheeseburgers if I had not read that column, I think we can all agree that any externalities from those burgers are in fact externalities from your column, so again, Fuck You."

Hmmm...it's Marlon Brando from THE WILD ONE, ("What are you rebelling against?" "Whattaya got?")...filling your gullet with crummy cheap food because you want to stick it to the man who, uh, wrote a newspaper column you didn't like.

You've got big balls, dude; I'm sure Bittman is beside himself with...no idea at all that you exist!; 7/17/14, 5:06 PM
Lorenzo said...: Only things I dislike have externalities.; 7/17/14, 5:12 PM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: Robert Cook said...

...filling your gullet with crummy cheap food because you want to stick it to the man who, uh, wrote a newspaper column you didn't like.

I didn't have the cheeseburgers to stick it to anyone, I had them because I had a craving for cheeseburgers ( inspired by his column. The McDonalds burgers are not the best, but the fries are, and overall the combo was worth the price.

You've got big balls, dude; I'm sure Bittman is beside himself with...no idea at all that you exist!

Based on his complete discounting of the value to the person enjoying it, combined with his ignoring their responsibilities for their health and any externalities from their food choices, I'd guess he has no idea that anyone else exists, at least in terms of being their own moral agents.; 7/17/14, 6:48 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: People used to ask me to proofread their essays in college. If I'd read that sentence in an essay, I'd have said, "What is that? That's incoherent. You have to fix that." And I guess I'd have been wrong because if they didn't fix it they'd have been writing on the level of the New York Times.; 7/17/14, 11:18 PM
Joe said...: I feel like starting a chain called Bittman Burgers.

The burgers will be delicious, but the staff will berate you incoherently when you buy one.; 7/18/14, 12:45 AM