I participated in this week’s Rose Cafe in a discussion about fats with Professor Robins. Before this talk, I would not think about fat in ways other than weight gains and how I struggle to reduce fat consumption every day. However, Professor Robins not only informs us about the nutritional effects of fat but also makes us think about the politics that go beyond the fat production chains.

While I learned a lot about the health benefits of different chemicals in different types of fats (e.g. unsaturated fats are typically in liquid forms and saturated fats are in solid forms in low temperature), what interests me the most is how interdependent fat is as a commodity. On the one hand, the production of fat concerns with environmental issues, such as soil degradation. Professor Robins mentioned that there is no ecologically good or bad fat: while plant-based fat decreases the use of animal produced fat, vegetable oils increase deforestation. Specifically, there is a debate about substituting soybean oil produced in Brazil, which decreases the diversity of plantation in the Amazons, with palm tree oil produced in Malaysia, which supposedly leads to less deforestation. On the other hand, government plays a big role in the international fat market so as to regulate the price of different types of fat, rather than using economic approaches to regulate the health issues related to fat consumption. Professor Robins talked about that the U.S. government encourages domestically produced fats while disincentivizes imported fats. The intention of this policy is to help domestic fats producers. Professor Robins might not discuss too much about this, but from what I learned in my International Trade and Finance class, the consequences of such policy is complicated and far-reaching. For one, decreasing fat import undermines the competitiveness of the international fat market and reduces consumer choices through increasing the price of foreign fat products, thereby decreasing consumer welfares. Secondly, while fat producers at home are protected, the net welfare of the country as a whole might decrease as a result of retaliation by other countries that export fat to the U.S.–by decreasing U.S. imports in other industries. Moreover, increasing production of plant-based fat at home might speed up the process of deforestation, decreasing social welfare of the whole country. In short, there is no clear right or wrong in such trade policy but demonstrates the dynamics of politics behind various price tags and brands of fats.

This talk has really made me think about fat beyond the realm of body weight and see how much ecological and political debates have taken place before consuming the fat on my plate.