Americans LOVE
MEAT.
In 2017, Americans consumed 150.2 million pounds of lamb and mutton.
To meet that demand on average 42 sheep are slaughtered per minute!
42 Sheep Slaughtered/min
But that's nothing. In 2017, Americans consumed 26.3 billion pounds of beef.
61 Cows Slaughtered/min
Americans consumed about the same amount of pork as they did beef, clocking in at 25.6 billion pounds!
Because pigs are 3-6x lighter than cows, many more pigs need to be processed to meet demand.
230 Pigs Slaughtered/min
Turkey isn't only for Thanksgiving!
5.9 billion pounds of turkey was consumed in 2017!
459 Turkeys Slaughtered/min

But aren't we forgetting something?

CHICKEN
Chicken consists of the majority of American meat consumption.
At 5-8lbs each and 42.2 billion pounds consumed, lots and lots of chickens have to be slaughtered.

Brace yourself.

17,123 Chickens Slaughtered/min

In other words, 285 chickens are slaughtered per second.

And that's just the US!

Made with ❤️ and by Zach Bellay
Check out more visualizations at zach.ws !

Sources