Food Preferences and Nutrition in Rural Bangladesh

T dietary choice of households near subs~stence levels of nutrient intake is one of obvious policy importance. In many countries. such as Bangladesh. national goals are set in terms of nutritional intake and there is heavy intervention in the markets for foods. However. little is known about the manner in which food preferences vary with food expenditure and nutrient intake. The design of efficient programs to aid nutritionally deficient households in attaining minimal levels of nutrient intake requires information on all ownand cross-price elasticities for both target and non-target groups. The net effect of a food price subsidy on the consumption of food nutrients cannot be predicted without knowledge of the complete elasticity matrix. Results pre5ented below demonstrate that substitution effects can be so strong that the subsidization of certain foods quite often reduces nutrient consumption. In this study. demand equations for nine foods which allow for extremely flexible consumer price response are estimated from the individual budgets of 5.750 rural Bangladeshi households. Estimation at the household level is preferred because it more readily permits the incorporation of household composition variables into the demand analysis. such as household size. occupation and employment status, that are typically lost in aggregation. There is also a greater range and variation in expenditure levels than found in grouped data. This is of particular importance in the study of nutritional well-being as it is the poorest households which are of special interest. Moreover. the household sample provides suf-