How Many Animals Are Slaughtered For Consumption In The Us

(Post also published on medium.com!)

Vegetarian, vegan, plant-based, etc. diets seem much more mainstream in the media these days, and meat substitutes are no longer only a bad joke, and nonetheless the typical American eater is the greatest carnivore in all the earth, with Americans consuming more meat and other animate being products (per capita) than whatsoever other state. And meat consumption continues to climb, reaching record highs every year for the final five years, though this twelvemonth the coronavirus may nonetheless put a small-scale dent in this trend.

And then, just how much meat does the average American consume? Fortunately, the USDA provides plenty of information on carcass, retail, and boneless meat supply for over 100 years. Figures 1 and 2 summarize the trends from 1909 through 2017 (excluding seafood), and we can summarize things as follows:

Since World War 2, a revolution in livestock, and particularly poultry production, has kept per capita meat consumption high, which is now over 220 lbs of retail meat per person per year.
Craven has overtaken beef as the number one meat consumed in America, with an astronomical number of chickens now raised to slaughter yearly in confinement systems.
The veal and lamb markets have largely collapsed in recent decades.
Not shown here, Americans also each eat about xvi pounds of seafood, with shrimp the biggest component at over 4 pounds. This represents on the gild of several x billion fish and shellfish.

Meat Trends in the US

Figure 1. Trends in total meat consumption (excluding seafood) in the U.s.a. from 1909 through 2017. The left gives total meat supply, in terms of either full carcass, retail, or boneless weight, with like per capita trends on the right. Note that this dataset ends at 2017, but meat consumption continued to climb in 2018 and 2019 every bit well. Information from the USDA Food Availability Data System.

Figure 2. Trends in yearly retail meat consumption for major animals in the US from 1909 through 2017. The left and right requite total and per capita consumption, respectively. Note especially the explosion in chicken, which is now America's favorite meat. Data from the USDA Food Availability Data System.

Something to note here is the difference between live weight, carcass weight, retail weight, and boneless weight, as the unsavory business of converting a living animal to a retail product necessarily involves losses. Carcass weights are somewhere on the order of 50–70% of live weights, while final boneless weight is in turn almost sixty% of carcass weight. These losses are but one reason eating animals is less efficient than plants: Not merely do animals catechumen only a fraction of the energy and protein in their feed into biomass, only a fraction of that biomass is ultimately edible.

Meat Totals

And now, how many animals does it accept to requite united states of america over 70 billion pounds of retail meat each year? The USDA's "Livestock Slaughter" and "Poultry Slaughter" reports pigment a grim picture, with the following slaughter counts for 2019:

34.14 million cattle and calves
129.91 meg hogs
9.33 billion chickens
227.68 one thousand thousand turkeys
27.55 meg ducks
3.05 1000000 sheep, goats, and bison
Sums to nine.75 billion total farm animals

Thus, virtually 10 billion subcontract animals meet their end each year to feed American appetites, with the unfortunate craven representing merely over 95% of this full. This is unsurprising considering chickens reach slaughter weight in only six weeks and weigh a bit over 6 pounds at slaughter, while cattle, for example, take around 2 years and weigh ane,350 lbs at slaughter. Now, divide by the US population and we arrive at nigh 30 farm animals per American per year, with 28 of these chickens; the math gives less than a single individual fauna for any other major farm animal in a single year; Figure 3 summarizes the numbers for craven, turkey, cow, and pig.

Effigy 3. Per capita meat production and creature slaughter for the elevation iv meat animals in the US. The acme graph shows per capita alive, carcass, retail, and boneless weights (based on alive and carcass weights reported in USDA Livestock and Poultry slaughter reports, combined with retail and boneless conversion factors reported separately). The bottom figures prove total (in millions) and per capita slaughter counts on an annual footing. While tens and hundreds of millions of cows, pigs, and turkeys are slaughtered, the chicken numbers are utterly overwhelming.

Lifetime Totals

Figure 4. The number of terrestrial animals the average American tin be expected to consume over a 78.five year lifetime, rounded to the nearest animal, and using 2019 consumption numbers.

But now suppose we add up all the animals eaten over an boilerplate American lifetime of 78.5 years: Then (using 2019 numbers) we get in at the sums also illustrated in Figure 4 (rounded to the nearest animal):

2,232 chickens
54 turkeys
7 ducks
eight cows
31 pigs

Okay, this is all very grim, but suppose i avoided meat on one unmarried day of the week, a la "Meatless Mondays," or substantially equivalently, left meat out of merely 3 meals each calendar week. That is, simply reduce meat consumption by 1 seventh overall. How much slaughter could be avoided is a simple arithmetic problem, but laying out the numbers explicitly withal shocks the conscience. Over a lifetime, i would spare roughly 319 chickens, viii turkeys, 1 duck, 1 cow, and at least 4 pigs, as illustrated in Figure 5. In terms of overall yearly numbers, annual United states slaughter counts would (at least in principle) autumn by a remarkable:

one.33 billion chickens
32.53 million turkeys
3.94 meg ducks
4.88 million cattle
xviii.56 million pigs

Figure 5. Graphical illustration of how many animal lives would be saved past going without meat (the equivalent of) one day a calendar week, over a lifetime, for a typical American. Beast slaughters avoided are highlighted in cherry-red.

Of course, fully vegetarian and vegan diets are much better, but I'd besides like to champion the lazy, imperfect vegetarian who slips here or there, or even makes it their practice to indulge, say, in one case a week. Flipping the numbers above, and having a "Meaty Monday" while abstaining the rest of the week demonstrates the enormous potential of a harm reduction approach that does not demand purity. It may always be better (in almost every sense) to eat less meat, but the gulf between a typical American diet and that of a true vegan is vast, and the great good that could come of narrowing this divide should not be dismissed.

Universal adoption of the "six-days-a-week'' vegetarian diet would push total Usa meat consumption below 1909 levels, and the lifetime body counts would alter dramatically as seen in Figure 6 (not that this figure contains any new data, but it remains worth emphasizing!).

Effigy half-dozen. And now a graphical illustration of how many animal lives would be saved by switching to eating meat (the equivalent of) only ane day a calendar week, over a lifetime, for a typical American. Animal slaughters avoided are again highlighted in cherry.

So to sum up, America is and has been a nation of meat eaters, with the revolution in livestock, and poultry product specially, since near WWII driving the Usa to now consume about 10 billion terrestrial subcontract animals each year, not to mentions tens of billions of sea critters (peradventure the subject of another post!). Notwithstanding, by seeing the enormity of the numbers, we can as well see the remarkable potential of harm reduction strategies, even if they fall brusk of a meatless ideal.

Source: http://environmath.org/2020/09/08/just-how-many-animals-do-americans-eat-and-how-many-would-you-save-by-going-meatless-one-day-a-week/

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