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Volume is pretty rigorously tracked by regulatory bodies that are responsible for food safety.
The US’s data is here: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/livestock-and-meat-domestic-data/
I’d copy and paste some stuff into this thread, but it looks like some parts of this site are under maintenance right now. That said, others have charted the data. https://www.agweb.com/opinion/drivers-us-capita-meat-consumption-over-last-century
Woah, looks like chickens were our friends until the 1940s when people started eating the friends
The 1940-1950 era is the rough timeframe when the factory farming of poultry took off, especially once antibiotics started being widely used to group even more chickens together in those factory conditions. e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_use_in_the_United_States_poultry_farming_industry#History_of_federal_policy_on_antibiotic_use_in_livestock
There’s a number of factors, including a concerted effort by the USDA to drive chicken consumption.
The Search Engine podcast did a two part episode about chicken bones that discusses the rise of chicken as a food product: https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/why-are-there-so-many-chicken-bones
Lamb is at 0 lbs/y? I find that and turkey to be suspiciously low
I believe it. I'm not American but Canadian (our diets tend to be similar) and before I became vegetarian I literally had never once eaten lamb, and turkey was only a Easter / Thanksgiving / Christmas meal. Keep in mind the number probably isn't 0 but close to it, it's just hard to see on the graph.
I had to reread your comment like 5 times because I kept reading "chickpeas" instead of "chickens"
That's actually quite an insane chart. So the average american eats around 125kg of meat a year? France is at 83kg, Italy at 81kg and Canada at 82kg.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_meat_consumption
Current german recommendations for healthy eating are saying that around 300 grams of meat a week are the max and Americans really seem to eat that every day.
Apparently so, but there is a wide variance in American diets. I wouldn’t be surprised if the biggest meat eaters are skewing that data quite a bit.
It’s not exact, but I just did a tally of the meat I’ve bought in the last year and it’s about 20 lbs. I could’ve forgotten something, and had a handful of meals out, so I’ll round up to 25lbs to be safe. Totally anecdotal, but 9% of the average listed here. I know I’m on the low end, but for most of my family I’d be pretty shocked if they ate over 3lb a week, or ~150lbs a year.
I live in the south and it seems like about half the people I meet eat more along the lines of what seems normal to me for someone eating meat, anywhere from 4-10x a week. A lot of those outside of dinners can be very small amounts of meat.
The other half unfortunately seem to be the type that consider it a tough challenge when they stop eating meat at every single meal, and it’s often at least 30% of their meal. It’s wild.
Any idea what caused the dip from 04 to 09?
There might be a number of factors, but most notably, beef prices started to rise and people switched to other meats, also 2003, 05 and 06 marked the first 3 documented outbreaks of mad cow disease in the US.
Turns out the easiest way to get people to not eat meat is to just raise the prices
The deadly brain eating disease was also a good turn off when it became new to North America.
I see the 2008 decline in beef.
Thanks to Oprah
I'd think the financial crash. What did Oprah say?
Oprah did a very controversial, very public show about mad cow disease, implying it was in America, and led to a big lawsuit.
There are multiple sources of info, but for some easy listening, checkout the podcast 'Maintenance Phase' which did a 2 part feature on it.
Is that actually what we're seeing reflected in the graph? Mmm, I'm not convinced. But it's definitely true that she did hurt the beef industry in America.
Wow, thanks, that was interesting! It seems like people kind of gave up around 2017. Or some other indirect factor.
TIL Americans fucking loooove chicken
I would eat fried chicken every day if it wouldn't kill me.
I’d honestly take chicken over beef just about any day. I’m committing chicken genocide.
Chicken wings are so hot right now
I can get chicken leg quarters for $0.99 per lb., what's not to love? 😂