Publisher's Synopsis
The food system accounts for a large share of fossil fuel consumption in the United States, and energy accounts for a substantial and highly variable share of food costs. This intersectionbetween food and energy markets suggests that public and private decisions affecting onemarket will have spillover effects in the other. For example, would increasing the share of populationhaving diets that align with Federal dietary guidance reduce fossil fuel use in the U.S.food system? Would a carbon dioxide (CO2) tax improve diet quality? To address these issues, we use the most recent data available to integrate the material-flows accounting frameworkadopted by the United Nations Statistical Commission into the existing food-system accountingstructure of the ERS Food Dollar accounts. Then, we use mathematical optimization to modelhealthy diets. Our research indicates that U.S. agri-food industries are more sensitive to energyprice changes than nonfood industries. We find that in 2007, fossil fuels linked to U.S. foodconsumption produced 13.6 percent of all fossil fuel CO2 emissions economywide. Our study ofalternative diets shows there are many ways to meet the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. IfAmericans made a minimal dietary shift to eat healthy, we find food-system energy use woulddecrease by 3 percent. By making greater changes from current consumption, we find foodsystemenergy use could be reduced by as much as 74 percent. A tax on CO2 emissions fromfossil fuels would increase the cost of a typical meal by an average of 1.7 percent, with estimatesranging between 0.2 and 5.4 percent.Keywords: Carbon emissions tax, Dietary Guidelines for Americans, energy prices, environmentalinput-output model, food policy, fossil fuels, food prices, greenhouse gases, healthy diet, sustainability, U.S. food sys
