Is Meat Consumption in the US Increasing or Declining?

MEAT CONSUMPTION IN THE US OVER TIME

Over time, meat consumption and consumption in the United States has gradually increased, along with production. Between 1961 and 2018, annual meat production increased by over 30 million tonnes, representing an increase of 184%.

AMERICAN MEAT CONSUMPTION STATISTICS

According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the average American consumed around 144 pounds of meat in the year 2017. Red meat—meaning cows, pigs, and baby cows and lambs—accounted for just over half the total meat consumption, with another 42% being poultry (chickens and turkey), and fish and shellfish accounting for 7%.

Beef and veal

The majority of cows consumed in the US are raised for beef, spending their first few months of life on pastures before being sent to feedlots where they are confined in extremely crowded, excrement-filled pens. They're slaughtered when they are just over a year old.

Beef can also come from the dairy industry. Many people do not realize that cows must give birth to produce milk. Baby cows are therefore living, breathing, and innocent byproducts of this cruel industry. Male calves or unwanted female calves can be sent to feedlots to be fattened up before they are killed for meat.

Mother dairy cows whose bodies have broken down from the grueling demands of industrial milk production are also turned into beef. Known as “spent” cows, these sad individuals are often so injured or weakened that they cannot even walk the few steps towards the kill floor of the slaughterhouse.

In the US, beef consumption has had its ups and downs over the years. It peaked in the years 2007 and 2008, with 28.1 billion pounds consumed. These numbers then began falling, hitting low points in the years 2014 and 2015, with 24.7 and 24.8 billion pounds consumed, respectively. Then consumption began rising again, with 2019 seeing 27.3 billion pounds.

Veal is also consumed in the US, although it is not as popular as regular beef. Veal is the industry term for baby cattle who would ordinarily be nursing with their mothers and sticking close to their sides. Instead, legions of calves—considered nearly worthless by the dairy industry—are pulled away from their mothers and killed when they are 8-16 weeks old.

According to the USDA, veal consumption peaked in 1944, when each person consumed an average of 8.4 pounds of calf meat. Those numbers have since declined, with 0.3 pounds consumed on average in the year 2011.

Pork

Pork remains popular in the United States despite the cruelties inherent with pork production. Perhaps the worst part of pig farming is gestation crates. Mother pigs, known as sows, are confined within these cages for months on end. The crates are barely bigger than the pig’s body, preventing her from turning around or doing much else besides standing up or lying down. Gestation crates are banned in many places in the world; however, they remain common in the US.

Unfortunately, Americans love bacon and other pig products. In 2020, pig consumption per capita was at around 51 pounds. Projections see consumption rates staying steady over the next several years. Ideally, though, consumption will plummet as people come to understand how unethical pork production really is.

Poultry

Poultry refers to chickens, turkeys, ducks, and other birds who wind up on people’s dinner plates. Of these, chicken is by far the most common. These birds are raised for meat by the billions each year. Known as broilers, meat chickens spend their short lives mostly within vast, indoor sheds where they are virtually always prevented from stepping foot outside, or even from glimpsing the great outdoors, since broiler barns commonly do not feature any windows.

Birds are doused with antibiotics that keep them alive in conditions that could otherwise be fatal, thanks to the chronic stress of living in such confined, unnatural environments, plus being forced to live and breathe in their own excrement, which causes a host of illnesses both in birds and the human workers who manage them.

Chicken meat can also come from “spent” laying hens. These birds are used to produce unnaturally high volumes of eggs—nearly one every single day. This, combined with the harsh confinement many hens face on factory farms, such as battery cages or barns that don't allow adequate outdoor access, contributes to the rapid decay of hens’ bodies. When their egg production begins to decline, before they are even 2 years old, birds are shipped to the slaughterhouse.

Poultry remains one of the most popular meats in the country, with chickens almost entirely comprising the nation’s poultry consumption. The annual consumption of chicken is estimated at 108 pounds per person. In 2018, the US produced a whopping 22.3 trillion tonnes of poultry.

Lamb

Lambs are baby sheep. Traditional for Easter dinners, lamb has long found its way into American meals but is not nearly as popular as other types of meat. In the year 2018, the per person consumption of lamb meat was around 1.1 pounds.

Besides the obvious ethical quandaries associated with eating animals who are still infants, the way lambs are treated can be very cruel. Many lambs undergo a variety of cruel procedures shortly after birth. They can be castrated, where parts of the scrotum are destroyed. They can be disbudded, meaning their newly-budding horns are severed. And their tails can be cut off, often without anesthesia. In fact, all of these mutilations are commonly performed without any painkillers for the little lambs.

WHY DO AMERICANS EAT SO MUCH MEAT?

There are a variety of factors that have contributed to the high quantity of meat in the American diet. Culturally, meat has been considered a food of the wealthy and associated with higher status. As the middle class increased in the United States, so too did meat consumption. Meat has also long been associated with conceptions of masculinity, because eating a lot of meat is often seen as a sign of a “real” man.

The meat industry itself has utilized these cultural narratives to push its agenda of selling as much meat as possible to the public. The meat lobby is notoriously powerful, exerting influence on government agencies to tip the scales in its favor. This lobbying has been successful at shaping federal dietary guidelines, which recommend sustained meat intake while suppressing recommendations of meat consumption reductions. It's also kept meat prices artificially low, which has helped compel consumers to continue eating large portions of meat each day.

IS MEAT CONSUMPTION INCREASING OR DECREASING?

It's difficult to assess the state of the meat industry today. Some say it's as strong as ever, and there is data to back up these suppositions. One study shows that meat consumption generally is remaining steady, with a slight decrease in per capita beef and turkey consumption, but an increase in chicken. A Gallup poll showed little increase between 2012 and 2018 in people who said they followed vegetarian diets, but a slight uptick in those who followed vegan diets.

Others believe that the meat industry is dying, albeit a slow death. Thanks in part to trailblazing companies like Impossible and Beyond, plant-based meat consumption is breaking records year over year. Projections see the market growing by a factor of 20 in a decade, reaching an estimated $85 billion by the year 2030—and these estimates could be conservative. Plant-based protein shipments to restaurants have been rising rapidly, and billions of dollars in investments have been raised by the industry, including by conventional meat companies like Tyson, which may see the writing on the wall.

HOW MUCH MEAT IS WASTED IN THE US?

The idea of raising an animal in the abysmal conditions of factory farms, imparting unfathomable suffering onto chickens, pigs, cows, and other animals, and having their bodies wind up in the trash is a reality that's hard to accept. However, the US is an extremely wasteful country, and not just when it comes to produce like fruits and vegetables. The USDA estimates that 30-40% of all food produced is wasted, culminating in billions of pounds a year. This waste occurs both at a retail/institutional level and at a consumer level, with the average American household wasting about 31% of food purchased.

For meat specifically, a 2013 study of USDA loss-adjusted food availability reports found beef waste to be at 23.5%, pork at 32.1%, chicken at 18.4%, and turkey at 37.2%. These numbers represent the entirely needless suffering of billions of farm animals.

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF EVERYONE ATE LESS MEAT?

The social and environmental costs of factory farming are becoming increasingly understood, from farmworker abuses to climate change, to animal cruelty. Eating meat is not essential for human health, and so eating meat becomes a preference of palate—not a matter of survival.

With the world facing so many challenges that are only expected to get worse over the coming decades, opting to eat less meat would make a real positive impact. Whether for the people, animals, or the environment, reducing or eliminating meat consumption is one of the easiest and most effective actions an individual can take to make the world a better place.