Adherence
Increasing the price of meat, dairy, and oils/fats reduces saturated fat intake, but the demand is inelastic, meaning substantial price increases (e.g., 100% tax) are required to achieve modest reductions in intake.
If you are a policymaker, know that simply raising prices on fats will not drastically change diets because people are not very sensitive to price changes for these items. You would need extremely high taxes (doubling the price) to see any real drop in saturated fat intake, and even then, the drop is small. Focus on meat taxes in high-income countries where sensitivity is higher, but expect limited results overall.
a 1% increase in price associated with a lower SF intake (% energy/d) of about 4.3 percentage points... global findings suggest that a twofold increase in meat prices (ie, a 100% tax) is associated with decreased intake of only 2.47 percentage points.
Why this rating
Large-scale cross-sectional analysis of 160 countries using robust econometric modeling, though observational data limits causal inference.
Source
How prices and income influence global patterns in saturated fat intake by age, sex and world region: a cross-sectional analysis of 160 countries
Amelia Ahles et al. · BMJ Open · 2024
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