Burgers, bacon, steaks, and other meat products accept come under scrutiny in contempo years due to their impact on health, sustainability, and social justice bug. The number of companies working on meat alternatives in the U.S. is growing. Half of U.Southward. consumers under the historic period of 50 accept already tried a constitute-based meat production. Yet meat consumption in the U.South. is on the rising. As of 2017, America had the second-highest meat consumption in the world, surpassed only past Hong Kong. How much meat do Americans swallow, and what are the impacts of their meat consumption?

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

Americans swallow effectually 274 pounds of meat per year on average, non accounting for seafood and fish, or individual nutrient waste. The total amount of meat consumed in the U.S. has increased past 40 pct since 1961. In 2017, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported that Americans are exceeding the amount of meat recommended by national dietary guidelines, although women in the U.S. swallow almost a third less meat than men, and around 42 percent less beefiness.

Beef and Veal

The U.S. has the earth's 2nd-highest consumption of beef and buffalo after Argentine republic. In 2017 Americans consumed 81.74 pounds of beefiness and buffalo per capita, a 37 percent subtract from 1976, when Americans had reached a record consumption of 129.65 pounds per capita. In the belatedly 1970s beef consumption started falling, due to scientific findings apropos the health impacts of saturated fats. In 2013 beef and buffalo consumption in the U.Southward. had dropped to under fourscore pounds per capita, simply and then started rising over again.

Pork

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

Poultry

Poultry is defined every bit 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 percentage since 1910, from around 10.i pounds per capita to 65.2 pounds in 2018. Since 1961 the consumption of poultry has more than tripled.

The growing popularity of craven in the U.Southward. is linked to beef falling out of favor. For decades, consumers have been choosing chicken over beef due to health and ecology concerns; however, eating farmed chickens has as well 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 most v pounds to about ane pound per capita. Almost 20 percent of lamb consumption in the U.S. occurs during the spring holidays. Urban consumers are more likely to swallow lamb than consumers based in rural areas.

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

Over the last three decades, chicken overtook beefiness and pork to get the most ordinarily consumed meat product in the U.S. 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 consume 101.one pounds of broiler chickens per capita past 2030.

Is Meat Consumption Increasing or Decreasing?

Meat consumption in the U.Southward. increased by 40 percent between 1961 and 2017. Globally, meat consumption increased past 58 percent between 1998 and 2018.

U.South. meat consumption is expected to increase by 1 percent each yr through 2023, according to the contempo Packaged Facts written 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 beefiness and turkey by 2030.

Is the Meat Manufacture Dying?

The number of Americans identifying as vegetarians has remained roughly the aforementioned at six percent since 1999, according to Gallup surveys. The number of self-identifying vegans increased from just two to three percent between 2012 and 2018. Nevertheless, 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.S. consumers who have tried constitute-based alternatives has too risen to 70 percentage.

Investment firm UBS predicts that annual sales in the found-based meat marketplace will abound from $4.6 billion in 2018 to $85 billion in 2030. According to global consultancy AT Kearney, 60 percentage of meat eaten globally in 2040 will be from plant-based or lab-grown alternatives. In response to changing consumer preferences, traditional meat producers are increasingly adding constitute-based alternatives to their product ranges. A 2021 report establish that the average American believes that the U.S. could go completely plant-based by 2039. Yet when faced with falling local demand, some meat companies instead resort to increasing their exports to countries with rise meat consumption levels. In September 2020, for example, the U.Southward. pork industry exported a record 29 per centum of total pork production to buyers outside the U.S.

How Much Meat Is Wasted in the U.Due south.?

According to a 2020 study, Americans waste around a tertiary of the food they purchase, costing the average household $1,866 per year, 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 cow, pig, lamb, chicken, or turkey ends up being eaten. Beef, for example, can be wasted equally it moves from subcontract to retail due to damage during packaging, inadequate storage, or when inspectors reject information technology for safety reasons. Within retail, packaging failures, colour changes, spoilage, and overstocking can all crusade further loss. At the consumer level beefiness can be wasted due to inadequate storage, spoilage, recalls, and when consumers prepare more beef than they ultimately eat.

Taking the number of farmed animals who die before slaughter into account, the corporeality of meat wasted in the U.S. is even higher. According to Iowa Land University, an estimated 1 out of 3 pigs born into the U.Due south. pork industry dies earlier slaughter.

Meat waste material entails wasting the land, feed, water, labor, antibiotics, and equipment needed to enhance animals from nascence to slaughter. Farmed animals only convert 2 to 13 percent of the calories they eat into edible body parts. Poultry wastes 77 pct of feed calories, pork 91 percent, lamb and mutton 94 per centum, and beef 98 percent.

When we recognize the resources-intensiveness of animal agronomics, we can come across meat consumption itself as a form of food waste product.

What Would Happen If Everyone Ate Less Meat?

Animal agronomics, including meat production, is responsible for at least 37 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. Increasing global meat consumption pushes the planet closer to dangerous limits. Supposing that the whole world adopted the U.S. diet, 138 percent of the world's habitable land, more than land than is available, would be required to encounter human dietary needs. If the earth instead adopted the more than establish-based diet(s) of India, the area of habitable land currently used for agriculture could be more than halved, from fifty to 22 per centum.

Reducing meat consumption and transitioning to more institute-based diets would prevent farther deforestation, biodiversity loss, and ecology pollution; improve global health, including lowering the take chances of zoonotic outbreaks and antibiotic resistance; reduce greenhouse gas emissions; and free upwards a large amount of country, which could be used for reforestation. If the entire U.S. population switched from beef to beans, 42 per centum of U.S. cropland—267,537 square miles—could be repurposed for the restoration of ecosystems and more climate-friendly farming.

Plant poly peptide can supersede beast protein to meet man dietary needs. Instead of monocultures used to abound animal feed, farmers could repurpose land to grow more diverse crops, such as vegetables and pulses. Pulses take nitrogen-fixing properties, are a healthy source of protein with a long shelf life, and tin significantly ameliorate soil fertility and reduce food loss in agriculture.

Eating Less Meat

Meat consumption in the U.South. remains high, despite the increasingly urgent need to change global eating habits. Animate being products have a significantly larger environmental footprint than institute-based products. According to scientists, a constitute-based diet is "probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth."

Since U.S. citizens accept 1 of the highest rates of meat consumption globally, more people eating a constitute-based nutrition is critical to reducing the country'due south emissions, and transitioning towards a more than sustainable system of food product.