The US ranks second — to mighty Luxembourg! — in per-capita meat consumption, per a review of 2007 data. (h/t Jag Bhalla)
I actually find the numbers both surreal and plausible. By these numbers, Americans in 2007 ate about 275 pounds of meat and poultry each — 125.4 kg, to be precise — or about 3/4 of a pound per day.
Update: per commenter Barry below, this particular chart has some real head scratchers in it — see this comment thread at Crooked Timber for some of the details. Other numbers for the US seem to hover between 200 and 230 pounds per capita per year, depending on which source you trust, or on the order of 2/3 of a pound per day. The underlying implications remain basically the same.)
Right there, friends, is the nexus of all kinds of interesting issues, from climate change to health care costs.
Masticate among yourselves (open thread).
Image: Alfred Grey, Highland Cattle, 1887
Barry
This has been discussed over at Crooked Timber.
Short version – it’s the Economist, and not trustworthy.
http://crookedtimber.org/2012/05/02/i-only-read-it-for-the-pictures-honestly/
Steve in DC
Meat is good we just eat a bit too much of it. Though I’m not going to fall for the trap that our ability to raise meat is a bad thing. Eating meat is what helped us advance so much into the creature we are today, and for far too long there was a lack of meat for too many of us.
Granted, we need to scale back on our insane industrial scale production of meat. But that is only enabled by insane industrial scale production of plant products like soy and corn.
I blame monsanto.
rlrr
The US ranks second—to mighty Luxembourg!—in per-capita meat consumption
Here’s why.
rlrr
The US ranks second—to mighty Luxembourg!—in per-capita meat consumption
Here’s why.
The Dangerman
Well done!
rlrr
The US ranks second—to mighty Luxembourg!—in per-capita meat consumption
Here’s why.
redshirt
Not me! Vegetarian for 16 years now. I love it – especially being a preemptive pain in the ass for so many relatives.
rlrr
The US ranks second—to mighty Luxembourg!—in per-capita meat consumption
Here’s why.
blargle
12,804 McD’s in the US can’t be wrong.
dedc79
I’ve noticed when getting lunch at various franchise and local sandwich/coffee shops that it is often the case that the vegetarian options are priced the same or higher than sandwiches with meat/chicken/turkey.
I imagine there are a few reasons for this, which also probably play into high meat consumption in America. One is the level of subsidies for meat/poultry production beginning with subsidies that ensure low cost feed and extending to subsidies of the industries themselves. Another is the fact that we have exported a decent amount of our meat industry to countries with fewer environmental/health regulations enabling cheaper production of meat. A third is the role of the fast food industry in putting price pressure on meat producers so that they can sell hamburgers and chicken sandwiches for a dollar or two. Finally, I don’t have any numbers on this but my guess is that vegetarians tend to be more affluent, so there’s a perception that higher prices can be charged for vegetarian food because people have limited choices and can afford to pay the higher amount.
Steve in DC
Meat is good we just eat a bit too much of it. Though I’m not going to fall for the trap that our ability to raise meat is a bad thing. Eating meat is what helped us advance so much into the creature we are today, and for far too long there was a lack of meat for too many of us.
Granted, we need to scale back on our insane industrial scale production of meat. But that is only enabled by insane industrial scale production of plant products like soy and corn.
I blame monsanto.
Sebastian
Luxembourg can be safely ignored for these kind of statistics because Germans, French, and Belgians shop there because of significantly lower sales taxes.
Ash Can
@Barry: Actually, for straight news reporting, the Economist is probably the most trustworthy business/economic publication on the planet. A few wrongheaded editorials don’t change that. And although I think highly of Crooked Timber, I don’t see any discussion there that actually makes the case that the Economist isn’t trustworthy on the whole.
redshirt
Not me! Vegetarian here going on 16 years, with not a spot of beef, fish, or chicken (that I know of) in the span. Think of all the resources I’ve not consumed!
rlrr
The US ranks second—to mighty Luxembourg!—in per-capita meat consumption
Here’s why.
aretino
I don’t see the takeaway being that it isn’t trustworthy. As I pointed out in the Crooked Timber thread, they do leave out fish consumption, which makes the gaps between the top and the bottom of the list somewhat larger. But they haven’t done anything to massage the data. You can go to the FAO website yourself and see the data for yourself using their nifty web tool: http://www.fao.org/fishery/statistics/global-consumption/en
rlrr
@The Dangerman:
I see what you did there.
liz
Red meat is gross.
dedc79
I’ve noticed when getting lunch at various franchise and local sandwich/coffee shops that it is often the case that the vegetarian options are priced the same or higher than sandwiches with meat/chicken/turkey.
I imagine there are a few reasons for this, which also probably play into high meat consumption in America. One is the level of subsidies for meat/poultry production beginning with subsidies that ensure low cost feed and extending to subsidies of the industries themselves. Another is the fact that we have exported a decent amount of our meat industry to countries with fewer environmental/health regulations enabling cheaper production of meat. A third is the role of the fast food industry in putting price pressure on meat producers so that they can sell hamburgers and chicken sandwiches for a dollar or two. Finally, I don’t have any numbers on this but my guess is that vegetarians tend to be more affluent, so there’s a perception that higher prices can be charged for vegetarian food because people have limited choices and can afford to pay the higher amount.
aretino
I don’t see the takeaway being that it isn’t trustworthy. As I pointed out in the Crooked Timber thread, they do leave out fish consumption, which makes the gaps between the top and the bottom of the list somewhat larger. But they haven’t done anything to massage the data. You can go to the FAO website yourself and see the data for yourself using their nifty web tool: http://www.fao.org/fishery/statistics/global-consumption/en
dedc79
I’ve noticed when getting lunch at various franchise and local sandwich/coffee shops that it is often the case that the vegetarian options are priced the same or higher than sandwiches with meat/chicken/turkey.
I imagine there are a few reasons for this, which also probably play into high meat consumption in America. One is the level of subsidies for meat/poultry production beginning with subsidies that ensure low cost feed and extending to subsidies of the industries themselves. Another is the fact that we have exported a decent amount of our meat industry to countries with fewer environmental/health regulations enabling cheaper production of meat. A third is the role of the fast food industry in putting price pressure on meat producers so that they can sell hamburgers and chicken sandwiches for a dollar or two. Finally, I don’t have any numbers on this but my guess is that vegetarians tend to be more affluent, so there’s a perception that higher prices can be charged for vegetarian food because people have limited choices and can afford to pay the higher amount.
dedc79
I’ve noticed when getting lunch at various franchise and local sandwich/coffee shops that it is often the case that the vegetarian options are priced the same or higher than sandwiches with meat/chicken/turkey.
I imagine there are a few reasons for this, which also probably play into high meat consumption in America. One is the level of subsidies for meat/poultry production beginning with subsidies that ensure low cost feed and extending to subsidies of the industries themselves. Another is the fact that we have exported a decent amount of our meat industry to countries with fewer environmental/health regulations enabling cheaper production of meat. A third is the role of the fast food industry in putting price pressure on meat producers so that they can sell hamburgers and chicken sandwiches for a dollar or two. Finally, I don’t have any numbers on this but my guess is that vegetarians tend to be more affluent, so there’s a perception that higher prices can be charged for vegetarian food because people have limited choices and can afford to pay the higher amount.
PatrickG
They seriously undercount fish consumption. I’m not even sure they track it at all. For example, residents of Japan eating 0.2 kg of Other (not beef, poultry, or mutton) per year is slightly implausible.
The chart also seems to conflate Consumption with Production, but I didn’t really look closely enough to confirm that. The Consumption/Waste ratios would be of real interest, though.
Steve in DC
Not having a shortage of meat is a good thing. Eating meat was one of the key items that helped us evolve and helped our brain grow. And moderate meat consumption is a critical item in a healthy diet.
The problem is industrial farming. And our industrial meat production is only made possible by our industrial soy and corn production. Both of which have far more of a negative impact on our natural environment and the global food market than our idiotic meat consumption rates.
Of course, sustainable farming just does not work anymore. The only reason we can get away with it is that so few people actually bother to buy food from local sources that those sources can supply them. If an entire metropolitan area decided to go local people would starve.
Oh the problems of civilization.
PatrickG
They seriously undercount fish consumption. I’m not even sure they track it at all. For example, residents of Japan eating 0.2 kg of Other (not beef, poultry, or mutton) per year is slightly implausible.
The chart also seems to conflate Consumption with Production, but I didn’t really look closely enough to confirm that. The Consumption/Waste ratios would be of real interest, though.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Beef, it’s what’s for dinner:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlRbSMywTQg
burnspbesq
A rare two-post day for Scott Horton yesterday, and he hit two home runs. One takes a (to put it mildly) skeptical view of the Edwards case, and the other asks why Jose Rodriguez has never been prosecuted for obstruction of justice.
http://harpers.org/subjects/NoComment
Dave
I may not eat 3/4 lb a day, but there are few things more enjoyable than a perfectly done t-bone with a glass of scotch.
rlrr
Here’s why.
redshirt
Is this back on? Sorry for double post.
We might as well prepare for a meatless future now, while we have a buffer zone. Ain’t no steak on asteroids.
beltane
Something is wrong here. I keep seeing the same comments over and over again.
Water balloon
I eat at least double that. It’s not a meal unless it contains a large amount of meat.
rlrr
@beltane:
My fault. My attempt to comment kept erroring out….
Michael Demmons
I ate zero pounds of meat last year.
flukebucket
Here is another reason why.
NotMax
Frankly, I’m surprised the average per day amount is so low (is that pre-cooked weight or weight as served?). It must not include such things as beef tallow for frying, pink slime, white slime, etc.
Xenos
Luxembourg? I live there (here) and meat is ridiculously expensive. I once picked up two kilos of hamburger at the local boucherie and it ran me nearly 30 Euros.
Now cheese, really good Belgian and French cheese, is pretty cheap and the Belgian beer is top rate and so cheap (less than 3 euros for a 750 ml bottle) that it is not much more expensive than bottled water. And pâté is about 1/5th the cost at an American supermarket, including the stuff they may from wild boar. If this place is going to give me gout it is not the meat that is going to do it.
Then again, the most prominent American of Luxembourgish extraction is Denny Hastert, and so there may be something to this…
The Other Chuck
Something is wrong here. I keep seeing the same comments over and over again.
;)
Really though, can’t WP have a duplicate post filter? But I guess if it were decently programmed in the first place, it wouldn’t have a need.
Xenos
@burnspbesq:
We know the reason why. Hint: it rhymes with ‘blamthrax’.
cactusjackwallace
Having lived in Luxembourg I can verify that they do eat a TON of meat. They’re also the richest country, per capita, in the world. (And if you sneeze while driving from Germany to Belgium you’ll miss it.)
Xecky Gilchrist
I see the comment-duplicator plugin is working again!
@Steve in DC: Not having a shortage of meat is a good thing. Eating meat was one of the key items that helped us evolve and helped our brain grow. And moderate meat consumption is a critical item in a healthy diet.
I’m not convinced on that last, and indeed meat consumption appears to have spurred us to having the brains we do now. Now that those brains have come to understand nutrition and energy and we have the means to approach it differently, though, meat is not so critical.
The Other Chuck
I’m amazed that we beat Argentina. Those guys love beef. But then they love big portions of good quality grass-fed beef, which I guess doesn’t come to the same quantity as the Sagans (billions and billions) of burgers that McD’s alone shovels down our gullets.
Xecky Gilchrist
@flukebucket:
Here is another reason why.
Ha, yup. I’m sure part of what catapults the U.S. from normal meat consumption to the ridiculous is that ad-culture has successfully linked the concepts of meat eating and masculinity.
(ETA: my favorite post by August Pollak concerned this.)
jibeaux
Something’s screwy with the comment repetition…
I do at least two meatless dinners a week, quite a few meatless lunches, and all weekday breakfasts. Frankly, as long as I can have eggs, cheese, and seafood I’m quite happy diet-wise. The problem for me is that meat can be a very easy protein. If I have a bunch of CSA veggies, pretty much the easiest thing to do with them is saute them or salad them and serve with a grilled sausage. But I try to eat less, and what I do eat I try to get locally sourced and humanely raised. I also joined a local seafood CSA so that I’d be sure to include some nice fresh fish in the diet. Black sea bass is coming today so if you have any preparation ideas, send them on.
currants
India doesn’t even make the top 50, and their diet is one of the best for food quality/cost. Holy cow….
RossInDetroit
I quit meat in ’94 and don’t miss it a bit. OTOH, I don’t really care what other people eat.
Arguments can be made that meat consumption is bad for the environment, unhealthy, unethical, etc and in fact those arguments are made all the time. Might as well try and argue people out of their religion. Meat eaters will give it up when you pry it out of their cold, dead, greasy, plump bacon-smelling fingers.
So why bother?
Rosalita
@beltane:
glad it’s not just me, I thought I was losing it
the Conster
I’m halfway into the first phase of a supervised liver detox diet which consists of just fruits and vegetables. I wasn’t a big beef eater, but I did eat a ton of chicken, and it’s all starting to lose its appeal. Apart from the environmental impact of animal farming, the health benefits of keeping all of the pesticides, hormones and antibiotics out of your liver is incalculable, and keeps the weight off. The ideal is 80/20% plant to animal consumption, instead of the typical American diet of 80/20% animal to plant.
Steve in DC
I said moderate. The proteins you get from non meat products aren’t exactly the same, there are some other issues as well. This is more important if you are an athlete, pregnant, and a few other things. But even still, it’s good for people. And that’s leaving out some fatty acids and other items that are found in specific meat products.
We certainly eat too much meat, and often too much of a specific type, say beef consumption vs fatty fish consumption. But vegetarianism has it’s pitfalls and veganism is flawed and nutritionally dangerous for some people.
I don’t eat that much meat, and I certainly prefer salmon over steak on most occasions. But I’m not going to lie to myself that it’s bad for me in moderation. That dude eating a porterhouse every night is on a one way trip to a heart attack though.
WereBear
Vegetarians and vegans do more environmental damage than any number of cows and goats eating pasture.
In fact, there’s lot of land unsuitable for farming that does fine as pasture. The monoculture of grain, and the pesticides and fungicides that have to be used to keep it alive, and the salts in the irrigation water used to farm there; it’s deadly.
Animals on the land keep it sustainable. Grains turn it into a desert.
jibeaux
@RossInDetroit: Yep, but eating less is a much easier sell. And even though meat is artificially cheap in this country, vegetarian is even cheaper if you cook at home. I can make rice & beans with all the toppings, which my kids love, for even less than hot dogs if I use dried beans. So that’s a selling point too.
Steve in DC
@jibeaux
But that’s with bad GMO grains. The type that do environmental damage. If you go with sustainable non meat products the price goes through the roof.
ALL of our food products are kept artificially cheap through massively damaging farming on an industrial scale. Take any food product and make it sustainable, and the price goes through the roof.
RossInDetroit
I work around K-12 schools a lot. I’m pleased to see that the meals offered are really healthy. If you made good choices from these schools’ menus you’d have delicious and well balanced food.
But the kids already have ‘biases’ about what they eat. Many go for the meat and skip the fruits and veg. Or pick and choose.
One of the elementary schools did a month long school project on nutrition and health. I hope it will have some impact on the kids’ choices.
gaz
I’m not going to stop eating meat. I’ve dated several vegetarians, and at points past I’ve attempted to give up meat.
Even with a diet rich in protein, (lots of beans, soy, peanuts, and even some fish, eggs, protein shakes and lots of dairy) I always shed pounds in double digits when I first switched my diet. I wouldn’t put it back on either (it’s VERY hard for me to put on weight). I can’t afford that. I’m already very skinny.
I have a freaky metabolism. Considering the nasty nature of our meat processing, I often *wish* I could forgo it altogether. Instead, I try to buy locally farmed meat when I can get it. Luckily, when I move to Mexico, this stuff is easier to come by.
jibeaux
@Steve in DC: I buy my rice from Trader Joe’s, which has a non-GMO policy and reasonable prices, and some very nice rice mixes. That’s about as much work as I can put into food purchasing, eventually we have to eat!
Brachiator
@RossInDetroit:
This is just nonsense. Shit, you could as easily make the case that modern agriculture is bad for the environment, especially fertilizers and pesticides.
And all of the sustainable, whole foods and local farming bullshit continues to gloss over the fact that for millions of people in the world, just getting something to eat at all is the issue, and the supposed solutions offered might work if you depopulated cities and kill off a few billion people.
Cheap Jim
@Michael Demmons: Dude, you’re wrecking the curve.
Culture of Truth
Speaking of unusual headlines:
Cow breaks record for producing most milk
EMBRUN, Ontario, April 23 (UPI) — Smurf, a cow on a dairy farm near Ottawa, has broken the Guinness World Record for most milk produced in a lifetime, its owners said.
khead
Hamburgers – The cornerstone of any nutritious breakfast!
RossInDetroit
@Brachiator:
Not following your argument there.
I didn’t MAKE those arguments about the environment that you’re refuting. I said they’re not going to convince people.
Not gonna be your strawman here, thanks.
flukebucket
@Michael Demmons:
I probably ate about 400 pounds so I guess we cancel each other out.
WereBear
This is a big issue with me because I was vegetarian for about nine months. I have never felt so lousy in my life. I gained 40 pounds, was always cold, caught everything that came down the pike, and slept way too much.
And don’t say “you were doing it ‘rong!” because I had eager helpers down at the health food store who coached me obsessively; and accused me of not listening to them when it didn’t work. The abundant starches make me tired and they all turn to fat; which drives up my blood pressure and blood sugar.
My body just won’t get enough protein that way.
Culture of Truth
I’m amazed that we beat Argentina
USA! USA!
Brachiator
@RossInDetroit:
It’s real simple. I don’t care whether people are vegetarian or eat meat
Arguments that being a vegetarian is better for the environment are nonsense.
Arguments that being a vegetarian is better for your health are nonsense.
But if you enjoy being a vegetarian, if it works for you personally, more power to you.
More than this, all the food preference stuff is about as meaningless as Apple vs Google, Marvel vs DC comics, or Star Trek vs Star Wars.
The Other Chuck
@WereBear: You think that cattle raised for the meat industry are all out there grazing, and not, I dunno, being fed vast quantities of grain?
MosesZD
@dedc79:
Imagine all you want. You charge as much for a vegitarian sandwich as a meat sandwich because you can. Plus, if restauraunts only charged based on food-costs as a percentage of the price, not only would they have to change pricing pretty much everyday, menus would look far, far different than they do when it comes to pricing.
Culture of Truth
Using current technology and with no additional diversion of food grain, the world could produce enough meet to give everyone an intake comparable to that of the average person in the Netherlands
Does that including the more fun substances?
RossInDetroit
@Brachiator:
Which is what I said in my first comment also. So we’re in agreement. Don’t jump on my neck for arguments I didn’t make, okay?
Culture of Truth
It’s a boy-eat-dog world out there.
MosesZD
@the Conster:
Ah, made up stats. Meat to plant consumption in America is not 80% meat, 20% plant.
Based on the USDA’s most recent study, we eat (as of 2000) 195lbs of meat a year once adjusted for spoilage and waste. We eat 708lbs of fruits and vegatables. We eat 75lbs of oils, fats, etc. (butter, olive oil) with the largest category being the explosion of oil used in salad dressing while the other uses (cooking, butter, margerine) have all dropped significantly.
We eat far less dairy than we used to, down a good 30%. But we eat more cheese and ice cream while giving up whole milk. Dairy, in all forms, is 593 lbs a year.
Grains are at 200lbs a year. Extracted sugars are at 152lbs a year.
So, meat (includes eggs, fish, poultry) is 195lbs… Dairy is 593lbs… Fruits and veggies are 708lbs… Grains are at 200lbs… Sugar at 152… Oils another 75lbs…
How in the hell do you get 80%? I mean besides pulling it out of your butt or just spouting off some crap by a liar with an agenda.
Even at plant-to-meat conversion it doesn’t come up to 80%. While beef has a poor conversion ration when grain fed (7 to 1), chickens are very good (2-1) and pork runs ar 3.5-to-1. Farm raised salmon is 1.2-1. Tilapia is 1.8 to 1.
There’s no way 80% can be made to work. No matter how much you stretch the facts.
jl
@PatrickG:
You are probably correct. Estimates of food consumption can vary 20 to 30 percent because some estimates are based on production figures and use mass balance arguments, and others rely on estimates of retail sales. These will differ based on estimates of wastage, which takes up about a quarter of food production, or more.
Also depends on whether you are interested in variations over time and can forget about a relatively constant level of consumption over the sample period, or you need to know base levels too.
I notice in the links one set of estimates is based on delivery of livestock (more production end) and one seems to be based on retail sales estimates.
The production based estimates implicitly state that they are more interested in variations over time when they explain why they omit seafood and turkey and I think also omit lamb and mutton.
Google the the UN Foog and Agricultural Organization website and go to their statistics section and the documentation should explain it all.
@MosesZD: dang you just beat me to it. So, what MosesZD said, you have to account for wastage. Do that by checking source of statistics, production based or consumption based, and do they account for waste and spoilage, which is a factor all the way from farm to putting the food in your mouth from the plate (though size of factor varies greatly by stage or production and site, like farm, packer, supermarket, home).
jl
Also too, statistics from sources that are mainly interested in price and revenue forecasting will obsess on variations over time, and are relative unconcerned about anything that is relatively constant over the sample/forecast period.
WereBear
@The Other Chuck: Of course not. I wish they were; factory farming does not increase our supply, only their profits.
lord karnage
i would only mention that since 2007 there have been enormous advances and dazzling innovations in meat consumption by the united states. example:
http://www.kfc.com/doubledown/
now, the only thing between you and the meat is a thin coat of breading. you can’t even really call it a sandwich. holy crap, it’s less “food” than a proud testimonial to your disregard for your health.
plus there’s the whole mad cow thing in the eurozone.
c’mon,with today’s climate, it’s not even close. USA USA USA USA USA USA!!!!11! come get some, luxembourgian bitches!
Brachiator
@RossInDetroit: I thought you also wrote that
I apologize for misreading you.
It must have been some other poster who was referring to various faulty arguments about meat consumption. I am glad that we are in agreement on the main point.
PIGL
@WereBear: You are a complete and utter idiot.
WereBear
@PIGL: Do friggin’ enlighten me then… I’m assuming you are too young to have lived through the Dust Bowl, but here’s a big clue for you:
It wasn’t caused by the cows. It was caused by the plows.
Xecky Gilchrist
@WereBear: wow, the things I learn here, e.g that only vegetarians eat grain.
WereBear
@Xecky Gilchrist: I was only pointing out the environmental edge supposedly created by not eating meat is bogus. In fact, mammals are not supposed to eat grains, either.
They are, literally, bird food.
opium4themasses
@WereBear: This is silly. We are feeding grains to mammals and that’s the relevant point.
I am a vegetarian and I am not militant about it. I do get really tired of the defensiveness of some omnivores though. You are not arguing that what you are doing is right. You are just trying to say vegetarians are just as bad as you. My desire for you to stop eating meat (I like when people agree with me) is vastly outweighed by my desire to not have to deal with your vegephobia.
RalfW
What boggles my mind is that I eat, on average, 2 to perhaps 5 oz of meat a day, plus I try for at least one meatless day per week. (No, not Catholic).
Once in a great while I’ll eat meat twice in a day, or eat an 8oz strip steak. But there must be 1#/day folks out there to make up for the vegetarians and low-meat eaters.
Ugh.
Scott Supak
Grass fed meats are better for you, the planet, and the animals…
http://nectarhillsfarm.com
slim's tuna provider
i fancy myself somewhat rational — i eschew status symbols as much as i can — but eating a giant steak still makes me happy in the most non-PC ways. (i.e. it’s a status symbol, it used to be alive and now i am eating it, i am a manly man, etc.) i blame it on the fact that in the mother country we never saw a decent cut of meat, so i am reliving the triumph of the immigrant every time.
Randy P
Many moons ago, the wife and I were in Tijuana. Tired of the tourist strip, I pleaded with a cab driver in my not-fluent-but-not-terrible to take us to a restaurant that was not a tourist trap. He ended up taking us to a place called “Carnitas Uruapan”, which he described as a family place.
This was definitely a place for the locals. We were the only non-Mexicans in the place, nobody in the place spoke English, and we were entertained by the birthday party two tables over who had paid the mariachi band for the entire evening.
“Carnitas” is grilled bits of pork. It’s a specialty of the house. So the main thing to order there is either 1 lb of carnitas, or 2 lb of carnitas. I don’t remember what comes with it, probably a pile of tortillas and an assortment of salsas. I remember thinking “wow, I guess Mexicans eat a lot of meat.”
Was that representative? Perhaps not. But it definitely was a local joint as I said, and not aimed at the tourist trade.
Nicole
@WereBear:
If you were eating that much starch, you were doing it wrong.
Speaking as someone who eats meat only very occasionally, and who developed gestational diabetes, so blood sugar levels were a very big deal for me, I assure you, it’s entirely possible to eat a vegetarian diet and not spike your blood sugar. And grow a whole new person at the same time!
Moik
Wait – how did they come to that figure? If it’s a matter of ‘total meat consumed / population’, I could see that – ‘consumed’ != ‘eaten by each person’, especially if they take into account meat which is thrown away (Murika, f’k yeah), used to produce other non-human-consumption items (pet food), etc.
*Edit: Way late. Covered at 70 and 71 by jl and MosesZD.
pacem appellant
I don’t remember being interviewed in 2007 for this. My meat consumption (if we exclude fish) for that year was 0 lb. 0 oz. Not that we would have skewed the data much anyway.
WereBear
I wasn’t singling anyone out, except the people who were rude to me. And they know who they are.
Every mention of meat eating, under any circumstance, brings out two “facts” which are not true: that eating meat is bad for you, and that it is also bad for the environment. I think myths should be corrected.
Hey, if you feel good eating the way you do, then it’s good for you. I feel good eating the way I do; and I’ve tried it all, from raw foodie to VLC.
It’s called diversity, and we all should embrace it.