Econo’food potluck 20/20 — seeing clearly what we want
Economic explanations can be like trying to explain why a joke is funny: it takes a long time, and by the end it’s not funny any more. Our explanations can also be like dissecting a frog: it’s weird, and anyway the frog is dead. You get the picture — we can be a dismal science. The aim of our class potluck is to keep our topic fun and alive, poking at dinner just enough to get a clearer picture of what we want when we choose what to eat.
As you can tell from past blog posts, we have prizes for the dishes that contribute most deliciously to a healthy diet while also being either: (1) least cost, (2) most convenient, (2) most environment-friendly, or (3) most culturally significant. Friedman students love their food, so it’s fun:
![](https://sites.tufts.edu/foodecon/files/2020/02/EconofoodGathering_PicFromDiane-1024x530.jpg)
This year I introduced a surprise new award. I do some actual research on contest design, which teaches us that unanticipated prizes can be especially helpful to recognize and reward things people do for their own reasons. When we introduce new incentives, it’s important not to lose sight of those intrinsic motivations.
The new award this year was for dishes that are most ethical regarding workers in the food system. That’s a top goal for many eaters but it’s so difficult to tell how workers are treated. The prize, a hoodie celebrating the milk with dignity campaign, went to Julia Ryan for honoring the humble but powerful potato on which her Irish ancestors relied.
Before we eat, students explain a bit about what they brought and our faculty judges take careful notes.
Yurika Ueda explains her home-made sushi, special for Girls’ Day Dessert table, with Janna Adkins’ deeply American Rice Krispy Treats alongside cricket cookies, matcha fudge, etc.
Pao Vinitchagoon describes a dish he discovered when he first left Thailand…
After eating, judges announce the winners – here is Bea Rogers enthusiastically awarding the grand prize to Jason Kashdan’s delicious, cosmopolitan lamb-and-sauerkraut tacos
A favorite awards category is the most significant, won this year by the poly-cultural Christl Li with a dish she learned from a Ghanaian housemate. And like last year, this year’s potluck featured new recipes — here is the winning entry for a delicious & healthy but also very low-cost item, from our sprouting champion Kelly Cara:
![](https://sites.tufts.edu/foodecon/files/2020/02/RecipeForSproutedLentilPastaByKellyCara.jpg)
![](https://sites.tufts.edu/foodecon/files/2020/02/EconofoodLeftovers-1-1024x405.jpg)
Job listings
- Friedman careers center postings
- Friedman alumni group on LinkedIn
- Sustainable Food Jobs (mostly U.S.)
- Nutrition-related jobs (ASN)
- Devex (US and international)
- Economics-related jobs (search “food”)
- Policy-related jobs (APPAM)
- Boston-area intl. dev. jobs & news (BNID)
- Food policy jobs in the US (Daybook)
- Intl. ag and nutrition jobs+news (Ag2Nut)
- TABLE job listings (UK-based but global)
- Intl. development jobs (search “food”)
- Global health & poverty (80,000 hrs)
Helpful newsletters
- Food Fix – insider scoops on US policy
- Politico – US food & ag policy
- Farm Policy News – from Univ. of Illinois
- Solutions Journalism – stories of success
- ANH Academy – mostly Africa & Asia
- Boston Network for Intl. Dev.
- Ag2nut – international nutrition
- Chicago Council – global food & ag
- The Counter – ‘Fact and friction in American food’
- Food dive – specialist journalism about the food industry
- Food Safety News – nasty stuff to avoid
- Dani Nierenberg’s Food Tank
- Jeremy Cherfas – food culture
- Gro Intel – deep dives into data
- FERN’s ag insider news
- Rudd Center – obesity policy
- David Allison – obesity research
- Econofact – US economic policy
- Best of EconTwitter – in digestible form
Data & resources
- JPAL how-to research resources
- WB DIME data analysis handbook
- Grad school advice (for econ, but applicable to others)
- My list of resources (experimental)
- USDA Econ. Res. Service (ERS) data
- USDA Food & Nutr. program data
- NCCOR – all US food-health data
- World Bank data
- FAO Statistics (FAOSTAT)
- UNICEF statistics
- WHO – child heights and weights
- WHO – global obesity and BMI
- UN system data
- HDX – humanitarian crises
- The dataverse
- IHSN – household surveys
- IPUMS – accessible data (incl. IDHS)
- Euromonitor – branded foods (library subscription)
- Gro Intelligence data
- UNCTAD – international trade
Favorite blogs on ag, food & health etc.
- Noah Smith – economics of everything
- Ethan Mollick – AI in higher ed
- Ugo Gentilini – social protection
- Parke Wilde – food policy
- Econofact – US econ policy
- Jess Fanzo – food systems
- Marc Bellemare – ag & food econ
- Chris Blattman – dev econ
- Jayson Lusk – ag & food econ
- Diane Coyle – economics books
- Marion Nestle – food politics
- Tamar Haspel – food & ag
- World Bank – impact evaluation
- BITSS – research methods
- Susan Dynarski – education policy
Archives
- July 2023
- April 2023
- March 2022
- August 2021
- May 2021
- October 2020
- September 2020
- June 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- November 2019
- September 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- January 2019
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- October 2017
- September 2017
- May 2017
- February 2017
- September 2016
- March 2016
- September 2015
- March 2015
- January 2015
- October 2014
- August 2014
- November 2013
- October 2013
- August 2013