I was trying to look up a basic list of how much meat the average American eats, broken down by the source animals. It turns out it’s surprisingly difficult to find what I thought would be pretty accessible information.
I couldn’t find any single source. I was able to compile some of these figures from different sources but they reflect different years and probably different counting methods.
All figures are average American annual per capita consumption in pounds:
Chicken - 86.5
Beef - 65.5
Pork - 50.5
Turkey - 17.3
Shrimp - 4.2
Tuna - 3.5
Salmon - 2.0
Lamb - 1.1
Rabbit - .02
And that’s about as far as I got. I couldn’t find figures for other poultry like duck or geese. I couldn’t find figures for various game animals. I couldn’t find individual figures for most forms of seafood (which was generally combined into categories like fish or shellfish). I couldn’t find figures for exotic livestock like buffalos or ostrichs. And I’m not 100% certain that all of the above figures are accurate.
Can anyone point me to an online source that has all this information?
To be perfectly honest, most americans will not eat anything other than cow, pig and chicken with turkey a holiday special meat. The most common fish is canned tuna, premade fish fillets [breaded or plain] and shrimp. Many people in the center of the country have never had fish other than frozen shrimp and fish fillets like the fish sandwich at McDonalds. Coastal US does get fresh fish, seafood and shellfish.
A diminishing number will consider eating goose, duck, game hen, lamb.
If it is cute like Thumper or Bambi [rabbit and venison] most people refuse to eat it.
Literally. A large number of americans are grossed out thoroughly at the thought of eating anything but the basic 4, and heaven forbid suggesting organ meat!
sob I can not legally get horse in the US at a store, I have to essentially butcher one myself.
Although, you can occasionally get buffalo or ostrich in the store but it is passing expensive.
As to the rare meats, when they are more expensive per ounce than a good cut of steak, people are not going to buy them on the outside chance they may like the taste. People generally resist trying new foods. Many americans of my parents generation hate lamb because they were fed mutton, which has a very strong gamy taste, so they never served lamb and said that lamb tasted nasty so their kids refuse to try lamb. Same with shellfish and crustacians like crab, lobster, crawfish. They simply have never been exposed to them, they do not know how to cook them or take them apart and eat them.
Speak for yourself, I can just take crab nets and head for the Connecticut coast and get fresh crabs =) I’d go clamming but I am allergic … or I could make the 4 hour run up to Maine and pick up lobster fresh off the boat [although lobstermen do put into the dock at Abbots by the bay and sell directly to people]
And around here, bison is only a little more expensive than beef, and certainly cheaper than the best cuts of beef. No offense to New Englanders with your cheap lobster, but I think we got the better end of that deal.
I could buy someone being turned off by rabbit meat, but it seems totally unfathomable to me for someone to be grossed out by venison. Maybe that’s just indicative of my background, though.
I had lamb for the first time at an Indian place a few months ago. It was fucking delicious.
I eat lots of pork and chicken. I don’t eat too much beef. I eat fish often, but the actual amount of fish that I consume pales in comparison to pork and chicken. I don’t eat turkey as often as I eat fish, but I do eat it somewhat regularly (I have turkey in a sandwich maybe… two or three times a month?). I’ve never had rabbit or venison but I’d like to. I don’t know where I can buy any cheaply and I certainly wouldn’t know how to prepare it.
I would guess that prefab fish fillets (or fast food fish sandwiches) are probably the only significant entry missing from the OP’s list. Trouble is, rather than an individual species, those are various forms of commercial “whitefish” - cod, haddock, hake, etc. Or pollock, which some marketing genius hired by Long John Silver is trying to promote as a high class fish rather than a cheap cod substitute.
It might be better to just have a “fish” entry in that list, rather than trying to break it down by species. Even once you get past the commercial whitefish I just mentioned, there’s just too many varieties consumed, all in very small per capita amounts - catfish, tilapia, orange roughy, red snapper, … and that’s assuming that what people are eating in seafood restaurants is even correctly labeled. There are accusations about that it often isn’t, particularly in sushi joints.
Shrimp is by far the most popular shellfish, and is pretty miniscule compared to other things on that list. Lobster, crab, clams, etc are probably gaining, but are bound to be very tiny. I do my bit for the squid figures though.
Unfortunately, I eat less fish here in NC than I did in New England - and a big part of that is because they freeze all fish that enters the NC border for health reasons. So you can’t get truly fresh fish . . .and I love it right off the dock.
Lately I’ve been on a real steak fetish - craving it like 3-4 times a week when before I would maybe eat it once or twice a month.
I am not surprised you couldn’t find the numbers very easily. Each of the major meatbeasts has its own producers association, PR machine, and government lobby. They’re all in competition - putting out the statistics benefits no one but the public.
Didn’t lamb used to be a lot more popular?
Go back 20, 30 years and it wasn’t unusual to have lamb chops, lamb stew, maybe leg of lamb on a big night.
What happened? Agribusiness? Sheep not take well to factory farming?
I’ve eaten all of the meats mentioned in the OP, in pretty much the proportions listed there (except more turkey than pork). I had rabbit just a few weeks ago at a restaurant, as it happened, but that’s unusual for me. I sometimes go years between meals of rabbit - it’s just not a common dish around here.
I keep kosher, so I only eat meats that I can find at a kosher butcher or restaurant.
Rabbit isn’t kosher. Venison could be, AIUI (though venison that was hunted and killed by being shot couldn’t be), but I’ve never seen it in a kosher market or restaurant. I’ve had kosher bison. I wish I could get it here.
I’ve seen frozen geese available, but it’s just me and Mr. Neville, and cooking a whole big bird like a goose is a bit much for two people. Nobody else in our family seems too interested in trying goose, so we don’t get it. We do eat duck, which is a more reasonable size for two. But it’s kind of a special-occasion food for us, since the preparation is more involved than cooking chicken parts or a turkey half-breast.
We probably eat less meat than most Americans, since we can’t have it with dairy and I love cheese.
We eat less fish than we did when we lived in California and had markets with really nice fish counters that were convenient for us It is easier for us to get chicken now, though, so we eat more of that.
I’m leery of mail-ordering meat, since nobody is home during the day at our house.
I wouldn’t even be able to tell you what animal luncheon meats come from (other than ones with the animal name in the title). What exactly goes into pepperoni, salami, and bologna?
It is easier for us to get chicken now, though, so we eat more of that.