Here's More Red Meat for Critics Of the Way Americans Chow Down

Like Some Sugar On Your Chicken?

We get a general picture of national eating habits by watching people’s bellies as they jiggle down the street. For more specificity, we can turn to the Agriculture Fact Book 2001-2002, issued last month by the Department of Agriculture. Its analysis of long-term trends in eating habits helps explain why Americans have been bulking up.

“Now more than ever, America is a nation of meat eaters,” the report intones. Total annual meat consumption (including red meat, poultry and fish) was 57 pounds higher per head in 2000 than in the 1950s (195 pounds vs.