What happens to diet quality when food prices rise? Revealed preference from national household scanner data, 2015-2018

This study investigates how diet quality changes with food prices, using detailed U.S. household purchase data. We find modest decreases in overall diet quality associated with price increases. By food group, consumers decrease meeting fruit recommendations by 13.4% for a 1% price increase, but better meet protein (5.4%) and vegetable (10.6%) requirements. This could be explained by a shift from unobserved random weight items to standardized packaged, frozen, and canned items and/or a shift to leaner proteins. The results suggest encouraging healthier diets likely requires more than pricing policies as well as better data linking food prices and diets.