As the world gets more populated, it consumes more meat. As it becomes more affluent, it consumes more meat. I should probably add: ‘as it becomes more obese and heart-clogged, its eating more meat’, but that wasn’t part of the study I read so I’ll leave it out for statistical purposes. But as the world becomes more enlightened, it consumes a much higher proportion of chickens and less ‘red meat’ than it used to. And obviously, as it becomes increasingly more stupid, it stops eating meat altogether.

The biggest (in every sense) consumers of meat are (drum roll, but really no suprise) The Americans!!! Followed by the Aussies, Kiwis and Argentinians. Those 3 collectively known as the countries with more animals than people. So you gotta eat meat just to keep control. The inhabitants of all those countries eat over 100kg of meat a year, on average. Us Brits come in at about 80kg per person. But I reckon I eat that in 2 weeks, so someone out there in ‘average-land’ is not pulling their weight.

The world consumes about 50% meat and 50% foul. In 1970 it was 75% meat. Which is good for health, and also good for the environment. Not quite so good for the chickens. It ‘costs’ a lot more to raise consumable cattle than edible chickens. And the cows have much higher carbon footprint, or ‘ass-print’ in their case due to the expulsion of all that methane gas.

In the poorer nations meat is a luxury item so consumption is way down on the relatively astronomical amounts eaten in the West. In African countries its less than 10kg per person per yer. In India its the lowest of all, at less than 4kg. And only cows are sacred to Hindus, not chickens or pigs. Sheep or goats. Deer or dogs… So its not a ‘God’ issue. Hindus actually have more gods than they have butchers’ shops.

The population of the world has doubled since 1961 yet with meat being reduced all round due to health, environment or obsessive reasons, meat production keeps rising. And that can only be a good thing for those who don’t care about any of the above. Cos then there’s more for us.

There ends the debate(?) about meat. Its a great thing but only when taken in vast quantities.

Happy, heart-stopping Monday

A xxxx