Consumer populations and nutritional transition in Spain in the twentieth century. A methodology for their reconstruction

One feature of modern nutritional transition is the growing consumption of animal proteins. Previously, the most common approach in the quantitative analysis of this change was the study of food consumption averages. This mode of analysis, however, seems to be incomplete unless the number of consumers is also known, and data on consumers are not usually published in historical statistics. This article introduces a methodological approach for reconstructing consumer populations, based on assumptions about the diffusion process of foodstuffs and on the modeling of consumption patterns. The specific case of milk consumption in Spain between 1925 and 1981 is used to illustrate the approach. The results correlate reasonably well with other data and with the sources available, which show that this dietary change was a slow and belated process. The reconstruction of consumer populations could shed new light on the study of nutritional transitions. © Éditions de l'EHESS.