Jannick Olsen

Research on organic food consumption tends to focus on organic food in general or on products with high organic market share, overlooking how product-specific characteristics may shape distinct consumption patterns, especially as food prices increase and concerns evolve. This paper focuses on organic meat, a product particularly affected by declining organic retail sales in Denmark. We examine how consumers negotiate rising food prices, climate concerns, and other ethical considerations regarding organic meat consumption. We draw on qualitative data from four focus groups conducted in 2024 among Danish consumers who placed a high priority on organic food (N = 26). The focus groups were carried out during a period of high inflation and public concern about the climate impact of consumption, particularly meat. Our findings show increased price consciousness leading to changes in food practices. In general, the participants did not report a reduction in their consumption of organic staples and vegetables but described a reduction in their consumption of more expensive organic products, such as meat. We identified three organic meat reduction approaches: (1) premium conventional substitution, (2) conventional substitution, and (3) reduction and replacement. While high prices appeared as a central reason for the reduced organic meat consumption, concerns about animal welfare, climate, and health were also prevalent in the participants’ accounts of cutting down on meat in general, which presumably affects sales of both organic and non-organic meat. The study provides insights into how organic consumers reconfigure their meat consumption behaviour in a context of both economic and environmental pressures.

A study reported an increased risk of asthma in children whose mothers were exposed to magnetic field levels above 0.2 μT during pregnancy. We re-examined this association using data from mothers and children in the Danish National Birth Cohort.This study included 92,676 singleton-born children and their mothers from the DNBC. MF exposure from power lines was estimated for all residences where the mothers lived during pregnancy and for all children from birth until the end of follow up. Exposure was categorized into 0 μT, 0.1 μT, and ≥ 0.2 μT for analysis. Definitive and possible asthma cases were identified using data from three independent data sources: 1) mothers' reports, 2) a national hospitalization register, 3) a national prescription drug register. We calculated hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals for the association between the highest level of exposure during pregnancy and asthma in children, adjusting for several potential confounding factors. We also examined the sensitivity of the risk estimates to changes in exposure and outcome definitions.No differences or trends in the risk of asthma development were detected between children with different levels of MF exposure regardless of the asthma case definition or outcome data source. For definitive cases, the HR for those with any exposure was 0.72, and it was 0.41 for those exposed to ≥ 0.2 μT. Adjustments for confounding and variations in the exposure definition did not appreciably alter the results.We did not find evidence that residential exposure to MF during pregnancy or early childhood increased the risk of childhood asthma. This interpretation is in line with the lack of an established biological mechanism directly linking MF exposure to asthma, but high exposure was very rare in this cohort.