But are Twinkies really "cheaper" when you factor in the cost to
society of poor health? There's a book making the rounds here in San
Francisco just now called GRUB written by the daughter of the Frances
Moore Lappe (who taught us in the 70s that vegetarianism is actually
better economically and ecologically for the world in her well
researched landmark book "A Diet for a Small Planet"). The GRUB
folks actually include animal protein in the mix, but argue that the
quality of the food we eat can be tied to costs not usually
associated with food cost accounting in the first approximation ("How
much did it cost to produce that Twinkie?" vs. "How much did that
Twinkie cost us once you ate it?"). They have a website at http://
www.eatgrub.org/.
And to the earlier comment about raw carrots costing more than canned
or frozen...ABSOLUTELY this happens in rich countries where careful
farming methods (organic, biodynamic) produce pedigreed produce that
people are willing to pay more to have. Also IMHO in America at
least agro-business produced canned or frozen product is typically
made from produce that would not have sold well as fresh for cosmetic
reasons.
On Apr 25, 2007, at 8:24 AM, Rishab Aiyer Ghosh wrote:
Fair enough: what you are arguing is that one standard method of cost
accounting explains why twinkies are cheaper. Other (non-standard?
actually, i'm pointing out that the inherent cost makes twinkies
cheaper, not some form of cost accounting. if half your crop rots
on the way to the market, you need to cover your losses when you
sell the remaining crop, no matter how you account for the loss!
