Is an Increase in Organic Consumption Accompanied by A Healthier Diet? A Comparison of Changes in Eating Habits among Danish Consumers

ABSTRACT

Several studies have shown that consumers with a high organic consumption often have dietary habits that include more fruit and vegetables but less red meat. This paper takes a novel approach by investigating whether changes in consumption of organics and improvements in dietary habits also are related. The results show that many consumers seem to improve their diet while increasing the organic consumption. Further, the study suggests that some households already have a relatively healthy diet in terms of fruit, vegetables, and meat consumption, when they start buying organic food. When organic consumption reaches a certain level, further increases in organic consumption are more likely to take place at the same time as dietary habits are improved. References to health and climate considerations seem to be the most important motivations for reducing meat consumption, while higher availability of organics is the most important reason for increasing organic consumption.

KEYWORDS:

• Organic consumption
• healthy diet
• changing food consumption
• panel purchase data
• stated preference data

Acknowledgments

The research was supported by Organic RDD 2.2 program. The Organic RDD 2.2 program is coordinated by ICROFS (International Centre for Research in Organic Food systems). It is funded by the Green Development and Demonstration Programme under the Danish Ministry of Environment and Food. We acknowledge three anonymous referees and the editor for their suggestions and comments on earlier versions of the manuscript.