While thinking about food and meals, I have occasionally mused about how many chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) are eaten each day worldwide. Haven’t you? Indeed, I have posed this question to friends. Sometimes I have posed the question to friends over dinner. I get strange looks. I don’t know why. Think of all the people in the world. Think of all the restaurants. Then, there are the billions who dine at home. That’s a lot of people and a lot of chickens. And then we do it all again tomorrow. For chickens, the daily count is extremely large – 202 million chickens bite the dust every day according to Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). To comprehend the scale, it is better to think in terms of the average per minute: 140,000 chickens are rendered kaput every minute. But fear not, you needn’t be overly concerned about a chicken shortage. In 2020, according to data from that same Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the global chicken population was over 33 billion.
By the way, I ordered a chicken and an egg from Amazon. I’ll let you know which comes first.
Why did the chicken cross the road?
To knock, knock. Who’s there?, walk into the bar, and change the lightbulb…….There. That takes care of all the jokes. …….You’re welcome.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because it was free range……So I lied about the jokes.
Relying on the infinite and occasionally reliable resource of knowledge that is the Internet, I posed my question about the chickens being eaten each day. Most of the “killed for food” information sites are run by various humane societies, so the word slaughter is used liberally as in “slaughtered every day” or “during a year”. Further reading at the same sites will usually extoll the benefits of vegetarianism or veganism. So, then I asked the question, “How many vegetarians are eaten each day in the world?” The answer was, “404 WE'RE SORRY—THAT PAGE COULD NOT BE FOUND”. …..see our Essay. Error Code 404.
I then asked, “how many vegans are eaten each day in the world?” Here’s what I got………The statement "how many vegans are eaten each day in the world" is factually incorrect as vegans, by definition, do not eat meat or animal products, so they cannot be "eaten" by anyone; the correct interpretation is that no vegans are eaten each day in the world because vegans do not consume animal flesh”. So there.
Back to chickens. Why did the chicken cross the road?
Because she saw what you did to her eggs………….. Really, I’m trying to stop.
How about eggs? According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, the global per capita consumption of eggs in 2020 was estimated to be around 153 eggs per person a year. This means that around 1.2 trillion eggs were consumed worldwide in 2020. Naturally that also includes our friend, Jerry Benincasa’s, impressive intake of spinach omelets. And that’s no yolk. Speaking of omelets, you will recall that original title of William Shakespeare’s most famous play was , “Omelet”. But we digress. We investigated egg consumption by country (are eggs “slaughtered”?) and Japan wins! How about the good old USA? According to World Population Review Overall, the United States is relatively close to the top of the list in terms of the number of eggs eaten. However, the United States is not anywhere close to the top of the list in terms of the number of eggs eaten per person. The hard-boiled answer is there are a lot of countries that consume more eggs than the United States. Per capita, the US ranks 22nd sunny side up, beaten by such countries as Paraguay, Qatar, Mexico, and Luxembourg. Those Luxembourgers, there are 673,000 of them, always scramble for their eggs. Of all the things that taste like chicken, it's odd that eggs aren't one of them.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, pork is the most widely eaten meat in the world (36%) followed by poultry (33%) per day…….What do you call a chicken crossing the road? Poultry in motion……..I’m thinking of joining a support group for chicken jokeism…. then beef (24%), and goats/sheep (5%). Not totaled are rabbits, geese, ducks, pigeons and other birds, buffalo, horses and other animals. This means that every 24 hours, it is broadly estimated between 3.4 and 6.5 billion animals are killed for food. That comes to a lower end estimate of 1.2 trillion animals killed every year. That’s a very impressive number. For contrast, anthropologists estimate that the total number of human beings who’ve ever existed is just 117 billion. The global shift from red to white meat can be explained, in part, by simple economics: Chickens and pigs convert feed to meat more efficiently than cattle and are thus much cheaper to raise.
The practice of eating cats and dogs (they are among the “other animals”) has become less common as pet ownership rises, and new generations have different attitudes to eating domestic animals. But an estimated 30 million dogs across Asia, including stolen family pets, are still killed for human consumption every year, according to the Humane Society International. While not widespread, the society says the practice is most common in China, South Korea, The Philippines, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and the region of Nagaland in India. They also eat cats in Vietnam and China. Evidently, they eat everything in China.
While we’re on the subject of meat, how about cannibalism? - About 1.45 million years ago, it was not unusual for our ancient human relatives to dine on one of their own. They usually feasted on meat from a shinbone, according to cut marks that constitute the oldest decisive evidence that our ancestors butchered and made a meal out of one another - according to a recent study published at Lifescience.com. Cannibalism has been well documented in much of the world, including Fiji (once nicknamed the "Cannibal Isles"), the Amazon Basin, the Congo, and the Māori people of New Zealand. Cannibalism was also practiced in New Guinea……well just about everywhere. Aside from Hannibal Lecter, it’s rare (not medium well?) but it’s still there. Three people in Brazil were arrested a few years ago for making empanadas out of human flesh. One of the most famous examples of survival cannibalism involved the Donner party. In 1846, 87 pioneers led by George Donner left Independence, Missouri, bound for California. In December, while taking a short cut recommended by Donner, they became trapped by heavy snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Facing starvation, the people eventually resorted to cannibalism. There is a frozen food joke here we think. In the past, cannibalism was practiced in Oceania, Africa, South America, North America and Asia but evidently, not Antarctica. Probably because there were no people in Antarctica.
Okay……….how about the most commonly eaten food each day in the world? You guessed it. Rice. Rice is a food staple for more than 3.5 billion people around the world, particularly in Asia, Latin America, and parts of Africa. Then comes corn (maize), wheat, roots, tubers and spam….just kidding about the spam. Corn and wheat can also give us cereal. The Roman goddess, Ceres, was considered the protector of grain. The term "cereal" comes from her name. When she ate breakfast, she was a cereal killer. But we digress. Potatoes are also a staple food in many parts of Europe, with the average person consuming about 18 pounds per year. At the same time, cassava, a root vegetable, is more common in Africa and is eaten by about half a billion people daily. And don’t forget pasta? Pasta is one of the most consumed foods and it is usually created from durum wheat and eggs. Yes, “dining is full of pasta-bilities"……I didn’t say that. Not surprisingly, Italy is the largest consumer of pasta per capita. Surprisingly, number two is Tunisia. The U.S is number seven behind Venezuela, Greece, Peru, and Chile. The average American consumes approximately 20 lbs. of pasta annually. And yes, spaghetti is the most popular pasta in the world. “Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon.”, Doug Larson
Then we started thinking about fast food consumption. The top five countries in the world are 1- The United States, 2- The United Kingdom, 3- France (ironically, the home of the renowned French Cuisine), 4- Sweden and 5- Austria…… Each Austrian eats approximately 30 Wiener Schnitzels a year. Breaking down fast foods, we find that according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Americans consume an average of 2.4 hamburgers per day, which is about 720 million burgers per year but that includes cheeseburgers. How about hot dogs? Well, we mustard up the courage to find out. The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council (yes that’s a thing) estimates Americans consume over one billion (mostly at Coney Island on July 4 by one guy) hot dogs a year - more than twice the retail sales figures. That works out to about 70 hot dogs per person each year. Clearly some people really like their hot dogs. Hot dogs are served in 95 percent of homes in the United States. According that same National Hot Dog Sausage Council (NHDSC), “Sandwich rolls, or hot dog buns, most often come eight to the pack because the buns are baked in clusters of four in pans designed to hold eight rolls and yet we get 10 hotdogs in a pack.” Well, worry no longer! The Heinz and Wonder companies have teamed together in the Heinz Hot Dog Pact. …..similar to the United Nations Charter…….in which a major hot dog company and a major bun company agree on a single number of products per package—10. Whew! “If God did not intend for us to eat animals, then why did he make them out of meat?”, John Cleese
As we continue to digest our fast-food information, we note that in the United States alone, over one billion pizzas are consumed each year. If you want to throw around the word, “slaughtered” just see and taste what they do to “pizza” at any fast-food chain pizza outlet.
We turn to seafood. I don’t eat seafood. There is one exception, Fish and Chips – haddock- when I’m in the UK, although I miss having it served in newspaper smothered with vinegar. But I digress. While viewing (mute button pushed) a Red Lobster commercial, I was reminded of the chicken query and wondered, how many lobsters are eaten worldwide each day? Evidently, lobsters are not slaughtered, they are “harvested”. The United States was the largest importer of lobster in 2021, at around 31,968 tons. China, South Korea and Italy respectively ranked second, third and fourth. However, Maine, the lobster capital of the U.S, “harvests” 100+ million pounds of lobster each year. Presumably harvested lobsters are consumed so those numbers would provide a general answer to the question about how many are eaten.
“It was a bold man that first ate an oyster”, said Jonathan Swift in 1738. Yup, a muddy shell taken from the bottom of the sea, cracked open to reveal a grey slimy object…sounds and looks positively scrumptious. Over the centuries, the bivalve has been consumed by members of all economic and social classes, all over the globe for its alleged aphrodisiacal and proven medicinal qualities. King Louis XIV of France ate 100 or so in one sitting while the famous lover, Casanova gobbled 50 or more every evening. Colin Shirlow, known as The Oyster King, made the Guinness World Record in 2005 for the most oysters eaten in 3 minutes. He devoured an astounding 233 oysters! The oyster was also at one time a staple diet of the poor. Most websites agree that around 2 billion oysters are eaten worldwide each year. Environmentally, each oyster can filter 50 gallons of water per day.
And crabs? Crabs make up 20% of all marine crustaceans caught, farmed, and consumed worldwide, amounting to 1.5 million tons annually. One species, Portunus trituberculatus, accounts for one-fifth of that total………..We turn our attention to fish. "I'm in the mood for fish, but I don't want anything that tastes fishy."……..anonymous restaurant customer. What about fish consumption? Like the lobster and crabs, we’re equating the number of fish caught with the number eaten per year. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which tracks global livestock statistics, measures fish production in weight, not number of animals. The FAO’s numbers only include farmed fish, and it’s between 211 million and 339 million gobbled up. Researchers Alison Mood and Phil Brooke attempted to quantify the number of wild fish caught every year, first by pulling data from multiple sources and then by converting the total weight of wild fish to an estimated number of animals. For wild fish they came up with between 3 billion and 6 billion per year! We’re not sure which “scale” they used. Tuna, cod, salmon, Alaska pollock and shrimp account for around 44% of the total volume consumed. However, the most captured fish is the Peruvian anchovy. They are turned into fish oil for feed and capsules, as well as fishmeal, mainly used in aquaculture (fish farming). In the US, shrimp (a shellfish, so technically not a fish) is the most commonly eaten seafood followed by salmon, tuna, tilapia, pollock, pangasius (used as a substitute for cod or halibut), cod and catfish. Worldwide, 3.1 billion people rely on fish for 20% of their daily protein intake, with some coastal communities reliant on fish for upwards of 70%. Americans consumed 6.3 billion pounds of seafood in 2019. And you thought chickens have it tough.
Having enjoyed our main meal, what is the most eaten dessert in the world? Ice cream of course. Chocolate ice cream is apparently esteemed by 93% of the countries analyzed, with 113 out of 121 countries searching for chocolate ice cream more than any other flavor. Chocolate chip cookies are the number one dessert in the USA. Brownies are the most popular in the UK while macaroons are the fastest-growing dessert*** in the world.
Of course, “turnabout is fair play” (first said by one Captain Dudley Bradstreet in 1755).
What animal kills and eats the most humans? The saltwater and Nile crocodiles are responsible for more attacks and more deaths than any other wild predator that attacks humans for food. Each year, hundreds of deadly attacks are attributed to the Nile crocodile as they chomp away within sub-Saharan Africa. "Lions and tigers and bears, oh my". Tigers have attacked and killed more people than any other large cat. In the early 20th century, one Bengal tigress killed 436 people. Lions, bears….polar bears, brown bears, black bears and sloth bears ….also run up an impressive human chow down count with polar bears in the lead. Then we have dingoes, hyenas, pythons, piranha, Komodo dragons, and sharks….Great White, Tiger, Bull, Sand, (the appropriately named) Requiem Shark, and Black Tip shark that are partial to human flesh.
We spend more money on antacids than we do on politics.” — John Boehner. Having noted the dazzling amount of billions and millions of food consumed, there is a price to pay for all that food. The global antacids market size was calculated at $7.47 billion in 2024. According to market surveys, antacid use is common in the general population. This study of antacid use in a university-based family-practice clinic supported the conclusion. In a sample of 731 adult patients, 51.3% reported taking antacids at least once in the previous six months and 10.9% took antacids daily. Tums© produces over six billion tablets. More than 60 million bottles or rolls are sold every year. “The secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside." - Mark Twain
And finally, one last chicken joke. A chicken is laying in the middle of the road, tire marks crisscrossing her body, a group of people are standing around her, looking down at her.
With her dying breath, she raises her head and says to them “Don't ask”.
***Beware the Internet. While researching this essay about food, one Google search revealed the following:
“People also ask
What is the tastiest desert in the world?
What is the deadliest desert?
What do you usually eat desert?
What is the number 1 desert in America?”
Naturally, I then queried “what is the most eaten dessert in the desert?” Answer- fresh fruit salad, fruit sorbet, or a simple yogurt parfait.
Sources:
https://ourworldindata.org/how-many-animals-get-slaughtered-every-day
https://sentientmedia.org/how-many-animals-are-killed-for-food-every-day/
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/25-most-consumed-foods-world-105336570.html#
https://a-z-animals.com/animals/lists/animals-that-eat-humans/
https://www.precedenceresearch.com/antacids-market
