Burgers, salary, steaks, and other meat products have come up under scrutiny in recent years due to their affect on health, sustainability, and social justice issues. The number of companies working on meat alternatives in the U.Southward. is growing. One-half of U.S. consumers under the age of fifty accept already tried a plant-based meat production. Yet meat consumption in the U.Due south. is on the ascension. Every bit of 2017, America had the second-highest meat consumption in the world, surpassed simply by Hong Kong. How much meat do Americans eat, and what are the impacts of their meat consumption?

How Much Meat Is Consumed in the U.S.?

Americans consume around 274 pounds of meat per year on average, non accounting for seafood and fish, or private food waste. The total amount of meat consumed in the U.S. has increased by forty pct since 1961. In 2017, the U.South. Section of Agriculture (USDA) reported that Americans are exceeding the amount of meat recommended by national dietary guidelines, although women in the U.S. swallow about a tertiary less meat than men, and around 42 percentage less beef.

Beef and Veal

The U.S. has the world'south second-highest consumption of beef and buffalo after Argentina. In 2017 Americans consumed 81.74 pounds of beef and buffalo per capita, a 37 percent decrease from 1976, when Americans had reached a record consumption of 129.65 pounds per capita. In the late 1970s beef consumption started falling, due to scientific findings concerning the health impacts of saturated fats. In 2013 beef and buffalo consumption in the U.S. had dropped to under eighty pounds per capita, only then started rising again.

Pork

Pork consumption in the U.Due south. fluctuated between 72.64 and 53.nineteen pounds per capita betwixt 1961 and 2017. The latest data shows that Americans eat an almanac 66.18 pounds of pork per capita. The U.Due south. Census data and Simmons National Consumer Survey (NHCS) found that 268 million Americans ate salary in 2020, with over sixteen million eating five pounds of bacon or more during the year.

Poultry

Poultry is defined as domestic fowl, including chickens, turkeys, and geese. In 2017 Americans consumed a tape 122.75 pounds of poultry per capita. According to the USDA, chicken consumption has increased by 540 percent since 1910, from around 10.ane pounds per capita to 65.ii pounds in 2018. Since 1961 the consumption of poultry has more than than tripled.

The growing popularity of chicken in the U.S. is linked to beef falling out of favor. For decades, consumers accept been choosing chicken over beef due to health and environmental concerns; however, eating farmed chickens has also been shown to be problematic for several reasons.

Lamb

Since the 1960s the consumption of lamb and mutton in the U.S. has fallen from nearly five pounds to well-nigh i pound per capita. Almost 20 percent of lamb consumption in the U.S. occurs during the jump holidays. Urban consumers are more probable to eat lamb than consumers based in rural areas.

What Is the Nigh Consumed Meat in the U.Southward.?

Over the last three decades, chicken overtook beef and pork to go the most commonly consumed meat product in the U.Due south. In 2020 Americans ate 96.4 pounds of broiler chickens per capita. According to data by the USDA and Economic Research Service, Americans are expected to eat 101.i pounds of broiler chickens per capita past 2030.

Is Meat Consumption Increasing or Decreasing?

Meat consumption in the U.South. increased by 40 percent betwixt 1961 and 2017. Globally, meat consumption increased by 58 percent betwixt 1998 and 2018.

U.S. meat consumption is expected to increase past 1 percent each year through 2023, co-ordinate to the recent Packaged Facts report Global Meat & Poultry Trends. While consumption of broiler chickens and pork is expected to ascension, Americans are expected to eat slightly smaller amounts of beef and turkey by 2030.

Is the Meat Industry Dying?

The number of Americans identifying as vegetarians has remained roughly the same at 6 percent since 1999, co-ordinate to Gallup surveys. The number of self-identifying vegans increased from just 2 to iii percentage between 2012 and 2018. All the same, and despite projections of growing meat consumption, 23 percent of Americans reported reducing the amount of meat they ate in 2019. The number of U.Southward. consumers who have tried constitute-based alternatives has also risen to 70 percent.

Investment firm UBS predicts that annual sales in the institute-based meat market volition abound from $iv.half-dozen billion in 2018 to $85 billion in 2030. Co-ordinate to global consultancy AT Kearney, 60 pct of meat eaten globally in 2040 will be from constitute-based or lab-grown alternatives. In response to irresolute consumer preferences, traditional meat producers are increasingly adding constitute-based alternatives to their production ranges. A 2021 study institute that the average American believes that the U.S. could become completely establish-based by 2039. Nevertheless when faced with falling local demand, some meat companies instead resort to increasing their exports to countries with ascent meat consumption levels. In September 2020, for instance, the U.Southward. pork industry exported a record 29 percent of total pork product to buyers outside the U.Southward.

How Much Meat Is Wasted in the U.South.?

Co-ordinate to a 2020 study, Americans waste around a 3rd of the food they buy, costing the boilerplate household $1,866 per twelvemonth, or $240 billion for the whole population. Fresh meat requires processing, and is a highly perishable production, which increases the likelihood of waste.

The USDA estimates that only half of the body of a slaughtered moo-cow, grunter, lamb, chicken, or turkey ends upwards being eaten. Beef, for case, can exist wasted as it moves from farm to retail due to impairment during packaging, inadequate storage, or when inspectors reject information technology for safe reasons. Within retail, packaging failures, colour changes, spoilage, and overstocking can all cause farther loss. At the consumer level beefiness can be wasted due to inadequate storage, spoilage, recalls, and when consumers ready more than beef than they ultimately swallow.

Taking the number of farmed animals who dice earlier slaughter into business relationship, the amount of meat wasted in the U.S. is fifty-fifty higher. Co-ordinate to Iowa Country Academy, an estimated i out of iii pigs born into the U.South. pork manufacture dies earlier slaughter.

Meat waste product entails wasting the country, feed, water, labor, antibiotics, and equipment needed to raise animals from birth to slaughter. Farmed animals but catechumen two to 13 percent of the calories they eat into edible body parts. Poultry wastes 77 percentage of feed calories, pork 91 percent, lamb and mutton 94 percentage, and beefiness 98 percent.

When we recognize the resource-intensiveness of animal agriculture, we tin see meat consumption itself as a form of food waste.

What Would Happen If Everyone Ate Less Meat?

Animal agriculture, including meat production, is responsible for at least 37 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. Increasing global meat consumption pushes the planet closer to unsafe limits. Supposing that the whole world adopted the U.S. nutrition, 138 percentage of the globe's habitable land, more than land than is available, would be required to meet human being dietary needs. If the world instead adopted the more plant-based diet(south) of India, the area of habitable country currently used for agriculture could be more than halved, from 50 to 22 percent.

Reducing meat consumption and transitioning to more plant-based diets would prevent further deforestation, biodiversity loss, and ecology pollution; improve global health, including lowering the risk of zoonotic outbreaks and antibiotic resistance; reduce greenhouse gas emissions; and free up a large amount of land, which could be used for reforestation. If the entire U.Due south. population switched from beef to beans, 42 percent of U.Southward. cropland—267,537 foursquare miles—could be repurposed for the restoration of ecosystems and more climate-friendly farming.

Constitute poly peptide can replace creature poly peptide to encounter human dietary needs. Instead of monocultures used to grow brute feed, farmers could repurpose state to abound more diverse crops, such as vegetables and pulses. Pulses take nitrogen-fixing properties, are a healthy source of poly peptide with a long shelf life, and can significantly improve soil fertility and reduce nutrient loss in agriculture.

Eating Less Meat

Meat consumption in the U.Southward. remains high, despite the increasingly urgent need to change global eating habits. Animal products have a significantly larger environmental footprint than plant-based products. Co-ordinate to scientists, a establish-based diet is "probably the single biggest fashion to reduce your impact on planet Globe."

Since U.S. citizens have i of the highest rates of meat consumption globally, more than people eating a plant-based diet is critical to reducing the land's emissions, and transitioning towards a more sustainable system of food product.