The Greening of Earth

nnn

1)  The article relied on surveys conducted using self reporting, which is known to be less than reliable in its results, for exactly the reason the authors cited;  Sure enough, the results varied from 37% to 23%, only to be lowered to 20% or less by the authors on the assumption of underreporting.  So, you see, it is not just me questioning the results of the experts;  the experts themselves are questioning the results of other experts.

yes, survey’s are not the most accurate way of accumulating data. that is the point of the article. underreporting [in surveys]. the authors’ conclusions are not just based on assumptions of underreporting, but general consensus in research that it exists, and applying statistical errors of observed underreporting as it relates to some survey data to larger collections of existing survey data. a common methodology in research, especially when dealing with known cultural biases in surveys. and i would caution being so critical of survey data as your argument is as much based on it as mine, although you seem to be ignoring the relationship between cultural issues with admitting to meat eating (something you admit to having observed) and underreporting in surveys.

2)  None of the surveys were exactly current, having been done in 2005 in the case of the NFHS, and 2011-12 in the case of the NSSO and IHDF surveys, nor were many of their other sources, several of which dated back to the late 20th Century.

again, common to revisit existing survey data with new methodologies.

Needless to say, this gave me a chuckle in light of your peremptory dismissal of the sources I provided, one of which, the infamous Hindu-CNN survey

didn’t outright dismiss it; pointed out that it was older, it’s interpretation was not peer-reviewed, and there was new data available. cultures change, behaviors change, information changes. feel free to stick to your beliefs as the world changes around you.

Whatever the true number, and they vary from the outlier 20% assumed by the authors up to the low 30s, not counting those who eat eggs, but no flesh, the mid range percentage invalidates your claim of 1.1 billion meat eaters.

a mid-range percentage between new and old studies does not invalidate a claim that aligns with a more recent study. and i freely acknowledged that all surveys, including past surveys, had placed the range between 20% to mid-30%, and specified that the 1.1 billion was based on 20%. your issue with using newer data and revised methodologies?

As for the great F&V controversy, I am still puzzled as to how you came to the conclusion that I think everybody is getting adequate fruits and veggies.

i provided several sources, from the India government, from other Indian sources, from the UN, from WHO, and from the US. most people in the world do not get enough f&v; India is no exception.

A morning stroll through the streets of just about any large Indian city will quickly disabuse a person of any such delusions.

you accuse me of being nasty and throwing ‘smelly stuff’ at the wall, yet suggest that i am subject to delusions. check yourself.

also, the mere presence of ‘a lot’ of produce doesn’t mean there is enough for everyone, that everyone can afford it, that they choose to buy it, and that they don’t waste any. sure there is a lot of food–people still starve…or do you deny this as well? this is possibly the most ridiculous point you are trying to make, and it is painfully obvious how misguided it is. i can say with absolute certainty that you have never seen, on any of your strolls through however many markets on a given day, enough food to feed even that region, let alone the entire country, for a day. i could go on to explain the difference between ‘a lot’ and ‘enough,’ but at this point, i know you are dug in, and this is more for other people who will read the thread. and those people, i assume, will understand the difference quite easily.

I have been back over our dialogue several times and it seems clear, to me at least, that my point was as follows:  There is an abundance of fruits and veggies in Indian markets, and they don’t end up being fed to the goats and chickens.  People are buying them, or they wouldn’t keep showing up day after day in the markets.  As you admitted, it is mainly an affordability problem, not a supply problem.

access [cost and availability] is a large part of the issue, especially for lower-income and rural areas. seasonality and storage affect more classes. and choice affects f&v consumption to various degrees depending on several factors. also, i did mention that based on domestic production and trade, there is not enough daily f&v for everyone in India to get the recommended amount. few, small groups do, several get close, but the majority do not get enough, and are deficient a significant portion of the year.

And I never did get you to directly answer my poorly crafted question:

i hope you don’t miss the irony of complaining about me not answering one of your questions, when you have refused to answer several of mine.

and that i did answer the question. yes is the answer. i gave it before you asked, i restated it after. yes, people in India eat meat.

And you think they are eating meat, at up to 400 rupees a kilo?  When, according to you, they can’t afford much cheaper fruits and veggies?  1.1 billion of them?

again i feel like you are not really reading all of what i write…or not understanding? or not remembering? i noted that the average Indian eats ~5.5 kg of meat per year. and that is based on tracked production and trade, not including locally grown, unreported consumption (mainly in more rural areas). so based on that average (across all socioecon groups) and some additional [mainly rural] consumption, what is your issue with it? you never did make a point other than to say i was wrong. i did not say they are eating meat every day, just that they eat meat sometimes.

let’s do a cost analysis. your ‘up to 400 Rs per kg’ is more than a little misleading. the average price listed on the page you provided is 43.35 Rs per 0.2kg of chicken breast (boneless, skinless–relatively expensive type of chicken), which, according to the recommended daily consumption list on that page, is ~25% of the total daily cost. (and, ~217 Rs per kg; @5.5kg per year (1,192 Rs) = 3.26 Rs (or 2% of budget) per day, just for some perspective). that 25% per day for .20kg chicken (not saying that is how much they spend, or how much they eat, just what’s on the list), represents a significant chunk of calories and nutrition; more calories than provided by any .20kg of f&v, more fat, more protein, more amino acids and other essential nutrition. $/kcal, $/g nutrient, etc… is much more important than just looking at the outright cost per weight.

one thing that did make me smile, is the profile calls for 2400 kcal per day (quite a bit more than a lot of people in India actually eat)and barely includes any vegetables with which to compare, which was not lost on me. potatoes, although technically a tuber, are considered too starchy to count towards you RDI for vegetables, and onions (bulb) and lettuce (leaf) are very low in nutritional value. tomatoes are on their, technically a fruit but still good for you, but no highly nutritious vegetables. really, looking at that profile, its not enough nutritional value from the f&v…so either making my point or just a poor example. thanks either way.

‘this question is poorly crafted. vegetarianism and f&v consumption are two different discussions.’

I have to disagree. They intersect in the context of your statements about 1.1 billion people being able to afford meat, but not many times cheaper F&V.

vegetarianism discussion – the incidence of people who identify as eating meat…ever. doesn’t have to be daily, or often, or even infrequently. you can eat it a few times per year, and that means you eat meat, as opposed to being a vegetarian, who never eats meat.

f&v discussion – incidence of people who eat a minimum recommended value (could be calories, nutrient profile, servings…) of f&v per day.

so…not getting daily nutrition intake vs. choice to eat meat, even rarely. one is a nutrition/food access discussion; one is a cultural behavior discussion. i never said they were substitutes, or replacements, or that people treat them that way. they are not eating expensive meat often/every day instead of f&v (a claim i never made but you keep bringing into the conversation).

if you recall from the beginning (if not, scroll up), my original comment was about the increasing consumption of rice and decreasing f&v, and you made the comment that there are a lot of vegetables and vegetarians in India, implying that they must be getting enough. i responded to the f&v part and the vegetarian part in separate sections, and then you put them right back together with your next post. if you continue to think they are related, you must be confused about what i am saying, or about the subject in general, or you just want them to be together. you are welcome to treat them however you want, but at least recognize that i have been keeping them quite separate from the beginning.

“yes, survey’s are not the most accurate way of accumulating data. that is the point of the article. underreporting [in surveys]. the authors’ conclusions are not just based on assumptions of underreporting, but general consensus in research that it exists, and applying statistical errors of observed underreporting as it relates to some survey data to larger collections of existing survey data. a common methodology in research, especially when dealing with known cultural biases in surveys.”

That is quite a stretch, particularly when the correction is from 37% to 20% or less.  I am inherently suspicious of “assumptions”, more so when they end up confirming the views of the authors.

“and i would caution being so critical of survey data as your argument is as much based on it as mine, although you seem to be ignoring the relationship between cultural issues with admitting to meat eating (something you admit to having observed) and underreporting in surveys.”

The difference being that I read the article with a critical mind, whereas you, in your own words, paraphrasing here, were merely passing along the conclusions of the experts.  So, I’ll ask you again, directly this time, did you read the entire article?  As for ignoring the relationship between cultural issues and underreporting, I am unclear how you come to that conclusion.  I merely stated that I view with profound suspicion a correction of the magnitude the authors made, based on an assumption of underreporting, particularly when it related to the NSSO survey, which they stated at the beginning of the article was generally regarded as a high quality source of data.  Maybe at that point, they go back to the boards and come up with better sources of data?  Or maybe there is a higher incidence of vegetarianism than they are willing to admit?

I’ll have to get back to the rest of your reply later.  It is voluminous and I find it a very time consuming execise to read through it carefully and separate the wheat from the chaff.  But I will reply, point by point, be sure of that.

“again, common to revisit existing survey data with new methodologies.”

Would you care to point out what, exactly, was new about their methodology?

“didn’t outright dismiss it; pointed out that it was older, it’s interpretation was not peer-reviewed, and there was new data available. cultures change, behaviors change, information changes.”

I’ll refer to your response when I originally posted the Hindu-CNN reference.  I think it speaks for itself in terms of your dismissive attitude.  In fact, it was contemporary to one of the authors’ surveys, a year newer in fact, and not that far off the other two.  Indeed, its estimation of the percentage of vegetarians was 6% less than the NSSO survey.  Beyond that, the authors had no hesitation in referring to it as a supporting source in their article.  I guess you could call that a sort of dynamic peer review?

Your original response, in single quotes:

‘so you searched for evidence to support your point instead of the most current data on the issue. a quick google search of ‘vegetarianism in india’ pulls up that wiki page first (along with the bbc article i originally cited as the fourth option, depending on the order of your search terms). then you scrolled down to the first bit of information that backed-up your claim, and voila. but in your excitement, you missed a few things. 1st–study from 2006. quite outdated for a study on cultural values of today. 2nd–that was a survey done by the ‘Hindu,’ the daily paper of Chennai. not exactly a reliable source. 3rd–maybe scroll down three more paragraphs to the most recent study:’

“feel free to stick to your beliefs as the world changes around you.”

I don’t see that much changed between the Hindu-CNN article and the authors’ article, except perhaps for the authors’ perspective and perhaps that as yet unspecified new methology you infer that would somehow eliminate all the imprecision inherent in self reporting studies.  Certainly the data couldn’t have changed all that much, else why would the authors have referred to the Hindu article for support? I also feel quite safe in saying that behaviors and cultures don’t change appreciably in a period of 6 years.  But, generally, yes, change is a constant in this world, and I constantly adapt my views in consonance with those changes.  When presented with convincing evidence of such changes.

“a mid-range percentage between new and old studies does not invalidate a claim that aligns with a more recent study. and i freely acknowledged that all surveys, including past surveys, had placed the range between 20% to mid-30%, and specified that the 1.1 billion was based on 20%. your issue with using newer data and revised methodologies?”

My issue is precisely that the data is not new.  The source surveys were conducted in 2005 and 2011-12, and none of them placed the percentage of vegetarians as low as 20%, as far as I am aware.  The first place I came across that was in the authors’ article in EPW.  Please point me to another source used by the authors for that number, if one is available?  The only thing new is that revised methodology that you keep bringing up, which somehow eliminates all or most of the uncertainty inherent in self reporting surveys.  Would you care to elaborate on that?

“i provided several sources, from the India government, from other Indian sources, from the UN, from WHO, and from the US. most people in the world do not get enough f&v; India is no exception.”

Would you care to point out where I said otherwise?

A morning stroll through the streets of just about any large Indian city will quickly disabuse a person of any such delusions.

“you accuse me of being nasty and throwing ‘smelly stuff’ at the wall, yet suggest that i am subject to delusions. check yourself.”

I stand by the comment about smelly stuff.  We were both starting to stink up the forum toward the end last time around, which is why I took a time out,  but you definitely bested me in that contest.  The morning stroll comment was a general observation, and was not directed at you, else I would have used the pronoun ‘you’.  Seriously.  We might as well put this one to bed now, lest it interfere with a civil exchange of views later on.  I propose that we each give the other the benefit of the doubt when it comes to interpretation of comments like mine, above.  If that is not possible, I propose we ask each other what the intent was.  I  will promise you that if I was listening to my darker angels and slipping into snark, I will apologize on the spot.  In return, I hope you will do the same.  Deal?

“also, the mere presence of ‘a lot’ of produce doesn’t mean there is enough for everyone, that everyone can afford it, that they choose to buy it, and that they don’t waste any. sure there is a lot of food–people still starve…or do you deny this as well? this is possibly the most ridiculous point you are trying to make, and it is painfully obvious how misguided it is. i can say with absolute certainty that you have never seen, on any of your strolls through however many markets on a given day, enough food to feed even that region, let alone the entire country, for a day. i could go on to explain the difference between ‘a lot’ and ‘enough,’ but at this point, i know you are dug in, and this is more for other people who will read the thread. and those people, i assume, will understand the difference quite easily.”

Again, you insist on twisting what I said, which was that the markets were overflowing with produce and that it was being bought.  Never, anywhere, did I say it was enough to feed every Indian.  If you can find a place where I did, I repeat, post it here.  The only thing misguided here is how you choose to put words in my mouth that I never uttered.  The comment about a stroll was a reference to the large number of malnourished people, not about overflowing markets, which I thought should have been obvious.  Apparently not, so let me reiterate it here.  I am painfully aware of the extent of human suffering from lack of food in India, both from reading and from first hand experience of a kind you lack.  You reject that experience as a valid contribution to this discussion, and you are really dug in there, but trust me, the impact if far greater than just reading about it.  Don’t waste your time trying to explain the difference between ‘a lot’ and ‘enough’ to me.  I am fairly certain I understand it at least as well as you, particularly in the context of India.

On a related note:  The sarcasm bordering on contempt woven into this post is beginning to get under my skin.  Maybe tone it down a bit, so we can discuss the issues on their merits?

“access [cost and availability] is a large part of the issue, especially for lower-income and rural areas. seasonality and storage affect more classes. and choice affects f&v consumption to various degrees depending on several factors. also, i did mention that based on domestic production and trade, there is not enough daily f&v for everyone in India to get the recommended amount. few, small groups do, several get close, but the majority do not get enough, and are deficient a significant portion of the year.”

I do not dispute any of this.  It is an issue we have not discussed except tangentially in the context of cost, where it has a direct connection to the affordability of much more expensive meat for those same groups.

“i hope you don’t miss the irony of complaining about me not answering one of your questions, when you have refused to answer several of mine.”

I will never refuse to answer a question of yours, if I am aware of it.  Your posts tend to be, shall we say, very long, and a couple may well have gotten overlooked in the laborious process of separating the wheat from the chaff.  Feel free to restate them, hopefully bracketed by lines ofspaces, and I will most certainly respond.

“and that i did answer the question. yes is the answer. i gave it before you asked, i restated it after. yes, people in India eat meat.”

C’mon, Jared.  The question was:  Do 1.1 billion people, in India, eat meat?  The numbers in the surveys and the article based on them say not, unless you accept the ‘corrections’ made by the authors to get the numbers to fit.  In the case of the NSSO survey, the correction was nearly 50%!

“again i feel like you are not really reading all of what i write…or not understanding? or not remembering? i noted that the average Indian eats ~5.5 kg of meat per year. and that is based on tracked production and trade, not including locally grown, unreported consumption (mainly in more rural areas). so based on that average (across all socioecon groups) and some additional [mainly rural] consumption, what is your issue with it?”

Oh, I read, remember, and think I understand what you are saying alright.  It is not exactly rocket science.  No, my problem is average as a statistical description of reality.  For me, it is to statistics what the flag is to patriots:  The last refuge of scoundrels.  ;0)  You would find it much easier to convince me if you were using ‘mode’.

“you never did make a point other than to say i was wrong. i did not say they are eating meat every day, just that they eat meat sometimes.”

What we are debating is roughly HOW MANY are eating meat sometimes.  Or am I totally misreading the nature of the discussion?

“let’s do a cost analysis. your ‘up to 400 Rs per kg’ is more than a little misleading. the average price listed on the page you provided is 43.35 Rs per 0.2kg of chicken breast (boneless, skinless–relatively expensive type of chicken), which, according to the recommended daily consumption list on that page, is ~25% of the total daily cost. (and, ~217 Rs per kg; @5.5kg per year (1,192 Rs) = 3.26 Rs (or 2% of budget) per day, just for some perspective).”

It was meant to be a starting point for discussion.  I’m also fine with .15 kg as a starting point.  When you consider that most estimates of the poor in India are north of 200 million, who scrape by on $1.90/day in PPP, at an exchange rate of ~67 rupees to the dollar, I come up with 127 rupees they have to get along on/day, assuming they are all right at the max of $1.90 to be in the category.  Feel free to correct my math if you disagree.  That is not a lot of money.  And here is where I start to take issue with your analysis.  As I said before, I don’t find averages particularly useful, and this is a classic example of why.  You are applying an average of 5.5 kg derived from total consumption, without regard to income, across the entire meat eating population, to a segment of society that has to get along on 127 rupees/day, max.  The distortion is huge.  To propose an average expenditure of only 3.26 rupees/day makes no sense in the real world.  Meat is not purchased in the market on the installment plan.  When the butcher hands over that piece of meat, it’s cash only, and that means the poor guy has to come up with 43.35 rupees, then and there.  That is ~1/3 of his entire cash available for the day, even if he is at the top of the poor category.  If he happens to be married, or has other, extended family members dependent on him for support, well, all I can say is that that .15 kg of meat isn’t going to go very far.  I’m sorry.  This entire line of reasoning just doesn’t make sense, at least to me.  He would be far more likely to purchase dal, at a price of ~50 rupees/500g package, probaby cheaper in the street markets, rice for somewhere around 15 rupees/500 g, and at least be able to fill hungry bellies.  Those amounts of rice and dal would likely last more than one day, depending on how many members are in his family.  It is a stark choice, one that should not have to be made, but there it is, for now, from my anecdotally biased perspective.

“that 25% per day for .20kg chicken (not saying that is how much they spend, or how much they eat, just what’s on the list), represents a significant chunk of calories and nutrition; more calories than provided by any .20kg of f&v, more fat, more protein, more amino acids and other essential nutrition. $/kcal, $/g nutrient, etc… is much more important than just looking at the outright cost per weight”

It doesn’t even come close to dal/rice on a cost per calorie basis, and, frankly, I doubt the poor guy is much concerned with amino acid profiles and the like.  He literally cannot afford to be.  He is what I would call a vegetarian by price, as opposed to choice, and my suspicion is that this is an undercounted demographic.  Is this a nutritionally balanced diet?  Of course not, and hopefully that will change rapidly as India continues to make economic progress.  I am fine with people eating meat, if that is their preference, even finer, to the point of being an advocate, of a diet heavy on F&V, which you assume I am not, mistakenly.  But we are discussing the current reality, or at least our differing versions of same.

“one thing that did make me smile, is the profile calls for 2400 kcal per day (quite a bit more than a lot of people in India actually eat)and barely includes any vegetables with which to compare, which was not lost on me. potatoes, although technically a tuber, are considered too starchy to count towards you RDI for vegetables, and onions (bulb) and lettuce (leaf) are very low in nutritional value. tomatoes are on their, technically a fruit but still good for you, but no highly nutritious vegetables. really, looking at that profile, its not enough nutritional value from the f&v…so either making my point or just a poor example. thanks either way.”

I don’t mind you taking credit for something we both agree on.  I didn’t present it as an ideal basket of foods.  It was the best I could come up with on short notice.  I would have preferred a list based on what I see in the markets.  Oops, sorry, there I go again.  Lots of brassicas, chilies, squash, eggplant, and on and on.  Yup 2400 calories is more than at least ~20% of Indians take in, as indicated by a BMI of 18.5 for over 20% of the population.

“vegetarianism discussion – the incidence of people who identify as eating meat…ever. doesn’t have to be daily, or often, or even infrequently. you can eat it a few times per year, and that means you eat meat, as opposed to being a vegetarian, who never eats meat.”

A fair statement, which I have never disagreed with.  If you can find a post where I did, post it here.

“f&v discussion – incidence of people who eat a minimum recommended value (could be calories, nutrient profile, servings…) of f&v per day.”

I think calories is not a good measure of the place of F&V in a healthy diet.  Nutrient profile is my gold standard, complemented by the amount, serving, weight, however you choose to define it that yields an effective ‘daily dose’.  The only vegetable I am aware of that contributes both calories and some important nutrients is the sweet potato, and it is not much used in India, so far as I know.  There may be others, and I am very willing to hear what you have to offer to the subject.  The leaves are also edible, BTW, and pack a decent nutritional value of their own.

https://www.healthbenefitstimes.com/health-benefits-of-sweet-potato-leaves/

“so…not getting daily nutrition intake vs. choice to eat meat, even rarely. one is a nutrition/food access discussion; one is a cultural behavior discussion. i never said they were substitutes, or replacements, or that people treat them that way. they are not eating expensive meat often/every day instead of f&v (a claim i never made but you keep bringing into the conversation).”

No.  What I keep bringing up is that if people cannot afford F&V, they are highly unlikely to be able, or willing to buy meat.  And meat is, in fact, very much a nutrition/food access issue.  Just above you were extolling the nutritional values of meat, fat, protein, amino acids, and other essential, but unnamed, nutrients.  I am assuming you meant Vitamin B12, for starters?

“if you recall from the beginning (if not, scroll up), my original comment was about the increasing consumption of rice and decreasing f&v, and you made the comment that there are a lot of vegetables and vegetarians in India, implying that they must be getting enough.”

I wasn’t implying anything of the kind.  If I want to make a point , I will come right out post it in plain black and white.  I did say that there are a lot of F&V in India, which are obviously not rotting or being fed to the goats and chickens;  and, yes, a lot of vegetarians, in India.  Part of what we are debating is roughly how many.  But do I think everyone is getting their RDI of same?  Absolutely not!  And I have never stated anything that makes that point or even implies it.  Except to you.  By the way, your comment about F&V purchases declining while those of rice increase goes halfway toward making my point about what the really poor buy come crunch time.  Dal is the other half of the equation.  Dal bhat, dal and rice, is a long standing, inexpensive ‘go to’ meal  all over India, and I strongly suspect that the number who eat it at the lowest quintile of the economic spectrum is being undercounted.  They are, to repeat a phrase I posted above, vegetarians by price, and I haven’t seen much information about them in any of the surveys.  I also have my suspicions as to why, but I can’t prove them, I’ll not present them here for consideration.

“i responded to the f&v part and the vegetarian part in separate sections, and then you put them right back together with your next post. if you continue to think they are related, you must be confused about what i am saying, or about the subject in general, or you just want them to be together. you are welcome to treat them however you want, but at least recognize that i have been keeping them quite separate from the beginning.”

I think they are related when it comes to how some 200 million poor people make decisions about what to buy to feed themselves on, at most, 127 rupees/day, when it is unlikely that everyone they are providing for is contributing another 127 rupees/day to the kitty.  I have repeated myself, what, 3 times now, and this will be the last.  If you can’t make the cognitive leap to at least understand what I am getting at by now, then I am wasting my time.  Think what you will.  I do recognize that you have been trying to keep them separate.  I just don’t agree, for the reasons I just stated.