zlacker

>>atestu+(OP)
Of note: the US's per capita consumption of meat has increased by more than 100 pounds over the last century[1]. We now consume an immense amount of meat per person in this country. That increase is disproportionately in poultry, but we also consume more beef[2].

A demand for the average American to eat more meat would have to explain, as a baseline, why our already positive trend in meat consumption isn't yielding positive outcomes. There are potential explanations (you could argue increased processing offsets the purported benefits, for example), but those are left unstated by the website.

[1]: https://www.agweb.com/opinion/drivers-u-s-capita-meat-consum...

[2]: https://ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/chart-detai...

>>woodru+fO
> the US's per capita consumption of meat

That number seemed unreal to me, so I looked it up. I think it represents the total pre-processing weight, not the actual meat meat consumption. From Wikipedia:

> As an example of the difference, for 2002, when the FAO figure for US per capita meat consumption was 124.48 kg (274 lb 7 oz), the USDA estimate of US per capita loss-adjusted meat consumption was 62.6 kg (138 lb)

Processing, cutting into sellable pieces, drying, and spoilage/loss mean the amount of meat consumed is about half of that number.

>>Aurorn+oY
Interestingly, ~12% of humans in the US are responsible for ~50% of beef consumption.

> The US is the biggest consumer of beef in the world, but, according to new research, it’s actually a small percentage of people who are doing most of the eating. A recent study shows that on any given day, just 12% of people in the US account for half of all beef consumed in the US.

> Men and people between the ages of 50 and 65 were more likely to be in what the researchers dubbed as “disproportionate beef eaters”, defined as those who, based on a recommended daily 2,200 calorie-diet, eat more than four ounces – the rough equivalent of more than one hamburger – daily. The study analyzed one-day dietary snapshots from over 10,000 US adults over a four-year period. White people were among those more likely to eat more beef, compared with other racial and ethnic groups like Black and Asian Americans. Older adults, college graduates, and those who looked up MyPlate, the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) online nutritional educational campaign, were far less likely to consume a disproportionate amount of beef.

High steaks society: who are the 12% of people consuming half of all beef in the US? - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/20/beef-usd... - October 20th, 2023

Demographic and Socioeconomic Correlates of Disproportionate Beef Consumption among US Adults in an Age of Global Warming - https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/15/17/3795 | https://doi.org/10.3390/nu15173795 - August 2023

(my observation of this is that we can sunset quite a bit of US beef production and still be fine from a food supply and security perspective, as consumption greatly exceeds healthy consumption limits in the aggregate)

>>toomuc+ui1
> A recent study shows that on any given day, just 12% of people in the US account for half of all beef consumed in the US.

This phrasing strongly suggests it’s not the same 12% every day. In which case… it’s probably not that noteworthy.

>>jncfhn+xx1
The phrasing strongly suggests exactly the opposite. Essentially, the whole framing of the linked guardian article is that there is a specific population which are the "disproportionate beef eaters".

>>glenst+bT2
And from the study linked, that framing/suggestion would be incorrect (at least for the numbers given). "the 12% are not the same every day" is an accurate interpretation. They asked about what people ate _yesterday_...

>>yxwvut+VZ2
Again, the whole premise of the article is that there really is such a thing as disproportionate beef eaters (DBE), and it spends time talking about this group explicitly. So the wording doesn't suggest otherwise, it explicitly suggests this is a real group.

Regarding the study this is a both can be true situation. There can be (1) a population who is disproportionate in their beef eating, and (2) a study about 12% doing the most on any given day can count in favor of that group being real and (3) not everyone from the daily 12% is part of the DBE group. It's more likely a venn diagram overlap, and where it doesn't overlap, people who aren't part of the DBE are incidentally in that 12% while being closer to average in the aggregate over the longer term. Those facts can all sit together comfortably without amounting to a contradiction.

>>glenst+Ad3
They can both be true but 12% of people eat 50% of beef on any given day implies that way more than 12% of people eat 50% of beef on any given year.

Like, it’s probably something closer to 40% than 12%.