Australians consume most meat, Pakistanis stand at 33rd position

According to the recent data of the 55-year old Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which has 35 members and had total budget of 363 million Euros in 2015, residents of planet Earth consume an average of 75 pounds of sheep meat, pork, beef and poultry per person, per year.

Australia comes first. Every year, an average Australian annually eats 205 pounds or around 93kg of beef, poultry, pork and sheep meat or about 250kg a day.

The United States is in second position with annual consumption of 200.6 pounds or 91.1kg, followed by Israel with 189.6 pounds or 86kg.

The high cost of meat means that people in developing countries end up eating very little of any kind of meat, for the most part.

Cultural norms also play a role. For example, in India, where the majority of the population follows the Hindu religion, vegetarianism is hence common. India otherwise stands at 42nd position in this OECD list with yearly per capita consumption of only 7.18 pounds.

Pakistan rests at 33rd position among the OECD countries with average per capita consumption of 27.66 pounds per annum.

Here follows the list of top 15 OECD member countries in terms of meat consumption:

Australia (93kg or 205 pounds per capita), United States (91.1kg or 200.6 pounds per capita), Israel (86kg or 189.6 pounds per capita), Argentina (84.7kg or 186.7 pounds per capita), Uruguay (82.9kg or 182.8 pounds per capita), Brazil (78.1kg or 172.2 pounds per capita), New Zealand (73.5kg or 162 pounds per capita), Chile (72.5kg or 159.8 pounds per capita), Canada (70.5kg or 155.4 pounds per capita), Malaysia (54.9kg or 121 pounds per capita), South Africa (50.7kg or 111.8 pounds per capita), Saudi Arabia (50.5kg or 111.3 pounds per capita), Russia (50.2kg or 110.7 pounds per capita), South Korea (50.2kg or 110.7 pounds per capita) and China (48.8kg or 107.6 pounds per capita).

According to the OECD, the meat industry has a detrimental effect on the environment and our health, despite the employment and revenue it generates.

The Paris-based organisation has viewed: “Increasing meat consumption across the globe is linked to urbanisation, a trend that is resulting in changing lifestyles and consumer habits. Meat consumption is related to living standards, diet, livestock production and consumer prices, as well as macroeconomic uncertainty and shocks to GDP.”

It further states: “Compared to other commodities, meat is characterised by high production costs and high output prices. Meat demand is associated with higher incomes and a shift - due to urbanisation - to food consumption changes that favour increased proteins from animal sources in diets. While the global meat, industry provides food and a livelihood for billions of people, it also has significant environmental and health consequences for the planet. This indicator is presented for beef and veal, pig, poultry, and sheep. Meat consumption is measured in thousand tonnes of carcass weight (except for poultry expressed as ready to cook weight) and in kilograms of retail weight per capita. Carcass weight to retail weight conversion factors are: 0.7 for beef and veal, 0.78 for pig meat, and 0.88 for both sheep meat and poultry meat.