Animal Sciences: Meat Consumption

Meat consumption in the US is excessive. According to the World Health Organization between 1997 and 1999 Americans ate twice the amount of meat than the rest of the world (World Health Organization, 2017). Meat consumption is likewise shown in our book as being 27% of the total food energy in the developed world and 17.2% in developing countries (Damron, 2013). While countries like India and Somalia, where religion excludes part or all meat consumption, obviously account for a much smaller amount of the overall count than more liberal industrialized countries like the US and China, areas in Africa and South-East Asia are the lowest consumers of meat according to the FAO with India consuming only 7.1 lbs of meat per person per year vs. the US with 270.7lbs (Barclay, 2012). The discrepancy in usage can come from religious practices, agricultural growth and cost of new technology implementation, historical divisions amongst casts or socio-economic groups, preference in using animals for draft power instead of food, etc. In countries where animal protein is not utilized as much, alternative protein sources such as beans, legumes, soy, and peanuts are used to supplement the dietary needs. These countries also show an increase in milk consumption. For example, Somalia, a predominantly Islamic country, consumes roughly 7% of its diet in meat and 24% in dairy and India, a predominantly Hindu country, consumes only 1% meat and 8% dairy (National Geographic, 2017). In many countries there is a stigma on animals as food sources due to religious beliefs, however, one can look back and many times find that the religious constraints were from a time when refrigeration or preservation methods were unavailable or set down in places where a large portion of the populace had a genetic anomaly that made them ill from the food source, such as many Asians being lactose intolerant; there would, of course, be a smaller dairy consumption in these areas.

References

Barclay, E. (2012, June 27). A Nation Of Meat Eaters: See How It All Adds Up. Retrieved January 11, 2017, from National Public Radio: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/06/27/155527365/visualizing-a-nation-of-meat-eaters

Damron, W. S. (2013). Contributions of Animals to Humanity. In W. S. Damron, Introduction to Animal Science (p. 9). Upper Saddle River: Pearson.

National Geographic. (2017, January 11). What the World Eats? Retrieved from National Geographic: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/what-the-world-eats/

World Health Organization. (2017, January 11). Nutrition. Retrieved from World Health Organization: http://www.who.int/nutrition/topics/3_foodconsumption/en/index4.html