Burgers, bacon, steaks, and other meat products have come up under scrutiny in recent years due to their impact on health, sustainability, and social justice bug. The number of companies working on meat alternatives in the U.Southward. is growing. Half of U.South. consumers nether the age of 50 accept already tried a found-based meat production. Yet meat consumption in the U.Southward. is on the rise. As of 2017, America had the second-highest meat consumption in the globe, surpassed only by 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 consume around 274 pounds of meat per year on average, not bookkeeping for seafood and fish, or individual nutrient waste. The total amount of meat consumed in the U.Southward. has increased by twoscore percent since 1961. In 2017, the U.S. Department of Agronomics (USDA) reported that Americans are exceeding the amount of meat recommended by national dietary guidelines, although women in the U.S. eat about a third less meat than men, and around 42 percent less beefiness.

Beef and Veal

The U.S. has the world's second-highest consumption of beef and buffalo after Argentina. In 2017 Americans consumed 81.74 pounds of beefiness and buffalo per capita, a 37 percent subtract from 1976, when Americans had reached a tape consumption of 129.65 pounds per capita. In the late 1970s beefiness consumption started falling, due to scientific findings concerning the wellness impacts of saturated fats. In 2013 beef and buffalo consumption in the U.Due south. had dropped to under 80 pounds per capita, but and then started ascent once again.

Pork

Pork consumption in the U.Due south. fluctuated between 72.64 and 53.19 pounds per capita between 1961 and 2017. The latest information shows that Americans swallow an almanac 66.xviii pounds of pork per capita. The U.S. Demography data and Simmons National Consumer Survey (NHCS) plant that 268 million Americans ate salary in 2020, with over 16 million eating five pounds of bacon or more during the twelvemonth.

Poultry

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

The growing popularity of craven in the U.Due south. 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 too been shown to be problematic for several reasons.

Lamb

Since the 1960s the consumption of lamb and mutton in the U.South. has fallen from nearly five pounds to about one pound per capita. Almost 20 percent of lamb consumption in the U.S. occurs during the spring holidays. Urban consumers are more likely to eat lamb than consumers based in rural areas.

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

Over the last iii decades, chicken overtook beefiness and pork to go the most commonly consumed meat production in the U.S. In 2020 Americans ate 96.iv pounds of broiler chickens per capita. According to data by the USDA and Economic Enquiry Service, Americans are expected to eat 101.one pounds of broiler chickens per capita by 2030.

Is Meat Consumption Increasing or Decreasing?

Meat consumption in the U.Due south. increased by 40 pct betwixt 1961 and 2017. Globally, meat consumption increased by 58 per centum between 1998 and 2018.

U.S. meat consumption is expected to increase by ane percentage each year through 2023, according to the recent Packaged Facts written report Global Meat & Poultry Trends. While consumption of broiler chickens and pork is expected to rising, 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, according to Gallup surveys. The number of self-identifying vegans increased from only 2 to 3 percent betwixt 2012 and 2018. Still, 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 take tried constitute-based alternatives has also risen to 70 pct.

Investment firm UBS predicts that annual sales in the plant-based meat market will abound from $4.6 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 plant-based or lab-grown alternatives. In response to changing consumer preferences, traditional meat producers are increasingly adding institute-based alternatives to their product ranges. A 2021 study plant that the boilerplate American believes that the U.S. could go completely plant-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 example, the U.S. pork industry exported a record 29 percent of total pork product to buyers outside the U.South.

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

According to a 2020 study, Americans waste around a tertiary of the nutrient 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 merely half of the body of a slaughtered cow, pig, lamb, chicken, or turkey ends upwards being eaten. Beef, for case, can be wasted as it moves from farm to retail due to harm during packaging, inadequate storage, or when inspectors reject it for condom reasons. Within retail, packaging failures, colour changes, spoilage, and overstocking tin can all cause farther loss. At the consumer level beefiness tin can be wasted due to inadequate storage, spoilage, recalls, and when consumers prepare more than beefiness than they ultimately swallow.

Taking the number of farmed animals who die before slaughter into account, the amount of meat wasted in the U.S. is fifty-fifty higher. According to Iowa State Academy, an estimated 1 out of 3 pigs built-in into the U.S. pork industry dies before slaughter.

Meat waste material entails wasting the land, feed, water, labor, antibiotics, and equipment needed to raise animals from nativity to slaughter. Farmed animals only convert two to thirteen per centum of the calories they consume into edible trunk parts. Poultry wastes 77 percent of feed calories, pork 91 percent, lamb and mutton 94 percent, and beef 98 percentage.

When nosotros recognize the resource-intensiveness of animal agronomics, we can see meat consumption itself as a course of food waste matter.

What Would Happen If Everyone Ate Less Meat?

Brute agriculture, including meat product, 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.Due south. diet, 138 percentage of the globe's habitable state, more state than is available, would be required to meet human being dietary needs. If the world instead adopted the more plant-based diet(s) of India, the surface area of habitable land currently used for agriculture could be more halved, from 50 to 22 percentage.

Reducing meat consumption and transitioning to more institute-based diets would preclude further deforestation, biodiversity loss, and environmental pollution; improve global wellness, including lowering the chance of zoonotic outbreaks and antibiotic resistance; reduce greenhouse gas emissions; and gratis up a large amount of land, which could be used for reforestation. If the entire U.Southward. population switched from beefiness to beans, 42 percent of U.S. cropland—267,537 foursquare miles—could be repurposed for the restoration of ecosystems and more climate-friendly farming.

Found protein tin supervene upon animal protein to run across human dietary needs. Instead of monocultures used to abound animal feed, farmers could repurpose land to grow more diverse crops, such every bit vegetables and pulses. Pulses have nitrogen-fixing backdrop, are a healthy source of protein with a long shelf life, and tin can significantly improve soil fertility and reduce food loss in agronomics.

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. According to scientists, a institute-based diet is "probably the unmarried biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth."

Since U.S. citizens have 1 of the highest rates of meat consumption globally, more than people eating a plant-based diet is critical to reducing the state's emissions, and transitioning towards a more sustainable system of food product.