An Indirect Evidence of the Physical Constraints in Intake of Food

Abstract

The physical constraints, newly and recently introduced in economic theory, imply that the quantity of food or calory from food that consumers can take is restricted. Consumers cannot take food without limit, so they have to reduce the intake of other food if they are to take more one food. For example, total calory per person taken from intake of rice and meat has remained between 200,000Kcal and 250,000Kcal since 1970s in Korea, which means that the Korean consumers has decreased the consumption of rice, instead of increasing the consumption of meat. In other words, rice has been in fact substituted for meat. However, the relative price of rice for meat has been in decline, which implies that the substitution between rice and meat cannot be explained by the change in relative prices. Thus, this paper apples the physical constraints to explain the substitution between rice and meat. Applied to the relation between consumptions in rice and meat, the substitution is explained well without economic variables. The results show that there has existed the physical constraints in consumption per person of rice and meat and that consumers has decreased intake of rice by 228.9g when they has taken additional 100g of pork.