Meat consumption patterns by race and gender

I have a bunch of thoughts about your post! First, AWESOME to see you covering this. I've been looking at some of the same data (both from separate studies, and also one study that looked at the NHANES data) and thinking about the same thing, and great to see you lay it out in such a clear way.

There's one important consideration though to keep in mind when deciding which group to target, which isn't mentioned in the blog post, which is likelihood of change. So for the men/women question, leaving aside beef and pork (since as you point out they virtually don't matter in terms of helping animals), men eat 20% more chicken and fish (so maybe 22% more animals) than women. But women are almost twice as likely as men to go vegetarian, and also make more of the food purchasing decisions in households than men (I can't find the exact percentage). The latter is clearly changing, though still relevant, but the former doesn't seem to have changed much over the past 15 years.

So, it's still better to focus on women if targetting by gender. In theory the same outreach would net 100 men or 200 women going veg, meaning (even leaving aside purchasing power, which is important), meaning about 56% more animals spared (assuming my math here is right: 100 men x 1, 200 women x .78) if focusing on women. Now it's certainly possible/likely that the success rate of outreach does not 1:1 mirror the current vegetarianism rates. (Men may be more close to women in ability to be persuaded, and less likely to go veg on their own; or it could be the reverse). But, until we know any other info on that or strong reasons to think men are as or almost as likely to be persuaded, I'd assume it's safest to go with the 1:1 ratio. (My personal experience leafleting and doing humane ed would suggest women are much more likely to be persuaded just as they are much more likely to go veg.)

Nick, you are absolutely right to note that I did not bring up persuadability in the post (on purpose). While it is very likely true that women are more persuadable than men with regard to vegetarianism, I did not find any good studies on it based on American residents or hard data of my own (other than the fact that more women are vegetarians). That is why when I compared advocacy for men vs. women, I used the escape clause "assuming no other influencing factors".

Anyway, my post does not take a position on whether it is better to focus on men or women because I wanted to stick to only conclusions that I could justify with numbers in published studies. But, it is possible that the post gives the impression that it is suggesting a focus on men for veg advocacy. So, I added a sentence at the end of the gender section: "This, however, does not imply that vegetarian outreach is more effective when targeted at men rather than women (or vice-versa) because such effectiveness can depend on other influencing factors such as differences between men and women on persuadability and openness to a change in diet."

One of the issues you raise is the troubling issue of people (women specifically, though it looks like men are doing this more recently as well) switching from beef to chicken. You're suggesting that women are replacing beef/pork with more fruits and vegetables, not chicken, which makes sense but I don't totally understand how you can conclude that from the data. Can you explain to me how we can infer that women aren't eating both more chicken/fish AND more fruits/vegetables?

Women may well be eating both more chicken/fish AND more fruits/vegetables, but only if men were likely doing so too. I think I did not make completely clear in the post that I was only looking at women's consumption relative to men. I was only suggesting that women, in relation to men, were not eating proportionally more chicken/fish to compensate for eating proportionally less beef/pork (assuming also that women have always been eating about 20% less than men). But, it is perfectly possible that both men and women are replacing beef/pork with chicken/fish and this data cannot conclude one way or the other. Thanks for the question. I edited the paragraph a little to clarify this point.

I am pleasantly surprised to see that the fruit/vegetable/grain numbers together exceed the animal product numbers. I guess the pessimistic picture I sometimes have in my head of the average American living on a diet of meat and cheese isn't true. Of course, anything above 0 in the animal product categories is depressing, but having this data is helpful in thinking about new targeted strategies.

Spike, an interesting limitation of this data is that it is by retail weight. For example, it is not possible to compare a retail weight pound of bananas with a retail weight pound of blueberries because the former will include the weight of the peel which is not eaten. In general, in this data, we cannot readily compare the meat eaten by men to vegetables eaten by men, but it is reasonable to compare the meat eaten by men to meat eaten by women. For example, the weight of fruits may be inflated because of fruits like watermelons with heavy inedible portions and so it cannot be compared to the retail weight consumed of, say, dairy.

This is why I have not drawn any pie charts in this post because different commodity groups cannot be compared against each other. But, a commodity eaten by one demographic group can be compared against the same commodity eaten by another demographic group.

By the way, just so you don't get too encouraged about the American diet, almost a third of the vegetable portion is potatoes (which, I suspect, is mostly in the form of potato chips and french fries).

This is a fascinating and very worthwhile post (and comments!). Thanks so much for doing this research, Harish. Your blogs are always so insightful.

Thank you, Paul, for your very kind words!

Great stuff as always, Harish! I would be interested in any data by age, too. Do HS / college age kids eat more red meat or fish than the general population? Etc. Our daughter's friends never eat fish, for example.

Thank you, Matt, for your comment and question. Prompted by your question, I looked into the data and you are absolutely right about teenagers not eating fish!

Boys (age group 12-19) eat about 85% of the meat that men (age 20 or above) eat, but boys eat only 30% of the fish that men eat. Similarly, girls (age 12-19) eat about 89% of the meat that women eat, but only 46% of the fish that women eat.

Boys eat the same amount of beef as men do, and girls eat about the same amount of beef as women do.

So, yes, fish is not very popular among young people! Your daughter's experience, I would guess, is not atypical.

But, unfortunately, chicken seems quite popular among them. According to this data, girls eat more chicken than women do!

I know your blog numbers are based on "consumption", but I wonder if it's the case that when women report consuming more broccoli it is actually true that they buy more but then throw it away. I was wondering why so many people are so overweight and unhealthy if they are consuming so many fruits and vegetables.

According to this report (link to cnn article below), "American families throw out approximately 25% of the food and beverages they buy."

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/22/40-of-u-s-food-wasted-report-says/

Spike, you are right that the numbers in this post are based not on what is actually eaten but on what enters the food market (what USDA calls "food availability"). Food availability serves as a proxy for food consumption, but they are certainly not the same. But, animals activists care mainly about food availability because a hen suffers to produce an egg whether or not the egg is eaten.

The USDA has not completely described its methodology behind these numbers for us to know how they account for waste in a consumer's home, on the restaurant plate, or at the grocery store. But, they do talk about these types of "losses" and consider them.

So, we don't know if people are throwing away a larger fraction of the broccoli they buy than the meat they buy. If that is the case, it would explain some of why people are unhealthy despite such high "consumption" of fruits and vegetables.

But, let's remember that a third to a half of vegetables people eat is potatoes (e.g., as chips and fries) and corn (e.g., as popcorn). A huge chunk of the fruit Americans eat is not as whole fruits but in the form of juices, jellies and jams with tons of added sugar. So, a large retail weight of fruits and vegetables can still mean a less-than-optimal diet.

Thanks for clarifying! I guess it's all around bad news: People are eating a lot of fruits and vegetables in the form of junk and they are buying food and throwing it away! Buying animal products and throwing them away is particularly sad.

Terrific post. This is quickly becoming my favorite blog.

Thank you, Dave! Glad to hear so.

Fascinating and very useful for our outreach efforts. Thanks, Harish!

Thanks, Harish. Great post / comments.

Thank you for making this information available!

Spike- Thanks for being the one sexist douche bag to post something! Are you upset that the data doesn't favor men?

Excellent research, insights, and answers as well, Harish.

Well, of course women eat less of meat and everything else than men, because women are generally physically smaller in size, therefore they need less food than men.

Still a big fan of meat!