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These are the countries where people eat the most meat

Americans are eating 20 pounds less meat per person than a decade years ago, but it’s still more than they ate in the ’70s

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Photo: Skye Gould/Business Insider

People around the world consume an average of 75 pounds of meat per person, per year, according to research by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. That includes pork, beef, poultry, and sheep meat. If it were all beef, that would be equivalent to approximately 300 quarter-pounders each year for everyone on Earth.

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Of course, this isn’t equally spread across the globe: Some countries are home to meat-eaters who eat far more than this global average, while others don’t eat more than the equivalent of a few dozen burgers a year:

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: In India, where the majority of the population is Hindu, vegetarianism is common.

In this ranking (of a subset of countries that the OECD has data for), the American enthusiasm for meat-eating is beaten out only the Australians — and only by approximately one small burger per person per year:

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