Comment by hgomersall

Comment by hgomersall 18 hours ago

1 reply

That's an incredible amount of meat. That's 400g a day per person. I can't even eat that much meat in one go without feeling the meal is seriously unbalanced. Half that is a meat heavy meal for me. So that must mean a significant number people are eating huge amounts of meat for every meal. That or the waste is huge.

smcin 16 hours ago

Yes that stat does make me wonder. Even if 21% of meat is wasted [0]. (Possibly they count "reaches a supermarket shelf" as = "not wasted", even if it isn't ultimately cooked or eaten?). But even then.

([1], the 2023 study by Tulane University supposedly finding "12% Of Americans 1/2 Of The Nation's Beef: How a mere 12% of Americans eat half the nation's beef, creating significant health and environmental impacts" is a red herring, all it says is that on any given day, some fraction of meat-eaters exceed portion sizes ("Those 12%—most likely to be men or people between the ages of 50 and 65—eat what researchers called a disproportionate amount of beef on a given day").

[0]: https://ballardbrief.byu.edu/issue-briefs/food-waste-in-the-...

> "Wasted food ranks as the number one material in US landfills, accounting for 24.1% of all municipal solid waste. Americans waste 21% of meat, 46% of fruit and veg, 35% of seafood, and 17% of dairy products. Altogether, Americans waste between 30% and 40% of the total US food supply."... "Poor packaging techniques causes 10% of grain products, 5% of seafood, and 4% of meat to be lost."

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditForGrownups/comments/16cpmni/...