Economic assessment of nutritional recommendations

Abstract

The effect of consumers’ compliance with nutritional recommendations is uncertain because of potentially complex substitutions. To lift this uncertainty, we adapt a model of consumer behaviour under rationing to the case of linear nutritional constraints. Dietary adjustments are thus derived from information on consumer preferences, consumption levels, and nutritional coefficients for each food. The model is then used to simulate, for different income groups, how the French diet would respond to various food-based and nutrient-based recommendations, and calculate the related welfare and health effects. This allows for the ex-ante comparison of the efficiency, equity and health effects of nutritional recommendations