It seems likely the meat packing industry make their preparations weeks ahead of time, and grocery stores stock up on meat days in advance of the 4th of July. Bread companies will bake more hamburger buns and deliver to the stores. More bags of charcoal gets sold. A lot of preparation goes into celebrating the birth of a nation.
Any published average estimates of the burgers and steaks that will be consumed?
Any amount that freedom allows.
from a news clip I saw earlier this evening.
700 million pounds of chicken.
190 million pounds of beef.
150 million hot dogs.
1 billion dollars of alcohol.
725 million dollars of consumer fireworks.
Quite some impressive numbers. Thats a lot of grocery shopping. A lot of juicy, and oh so delicious grilled and barbecued meat.
thanks
I call partial BS on those figures.
If the average American eats 4 oz of meat per day every day of the year, then we’d expect the ~320 million Americans to collectively eat about 80 million lbs each and every day of the year. The numbers they are quoting are about 11x that.
IOW, just for chicken, beef, and hot dogs, and ignoring pork ribs, fish, etc., they’re saying we’re going to consume on average some 3+lbs of meat apiece including infants and elderly and vegans and prisoners and homeless and … .
So it sounds to me like they’re simply taking all the grocery shopping for the week and assuming it’ll all be consumed on the holiday itself, or maybe that plus the other weekend day. Which, IMO, is a BS “factoid” in the true sense of the word: meaning something that’s fake, but plausible.
Also, how is that total different from the previous or next summer weekend? Or any other ordinary week’s shopping throughout the year?
700 million pounds of chicken? Every man woman and child is going to eat over 2 pounds of chicken today?
As a data point, I’m getting ready to head over to my buddy’s place to hang out with him, his wife, and her mother.
He’s putting 3 racks of ribs on the grill, with hamburgers and hot dogs too. I’m in the mood for steak so I’ll pick up a rib-eye on the way over.
I have no idea why he’s got so much meat. Nowhere near all of it will get eaten today. But it was all purchased and will be prepared for this holiday.
At most get-togethers I’ve been to everybody brings something and there’s way too much and plenty of leftovers.
All that said, the reported numbers do still seem high.
I’d easily expect six times as many people are cooking burgers and steaks today. It’s a tradition for the 4th of July just like turkey is for Thanksgiving.
I am surprised at how high the number is for chicken. I’ve never had much luck grilling chicken. it always comes out dry. Unless you grill it whole with a beer can up its butt. I’ve heard that technique makes extremely juicy chicken.
never tried it. Maybe labor day weekend.
Here’s another article quoting the same numbers and it says “190 million pounds of beef are snatched up in the two weeks preceding the Fourth”