• Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    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

      • PigsInClover@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        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.

      • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        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.

    • Dicska@lemmy.worldOP
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      8 months ago

      Wow, thanks, that was interesting! It seems like people kind of gave up around 2017. Or some other indirect factor.