Thanksgiving Day Food Facts

In 1621, the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony hosted the first Thanksgiving Fest. Their feast lasted three days and was held to celebrate the bountiful harvest after suffering a devastating winter. Thanksgiving Day became a national holiday in 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November a national day of thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Day  was later changed to the third Thursday in November by President Roosevelt to encourage an earlier holiday shopping season. Since 1863, Thanksgiving has become one of our nation’s most popular holidays involving families, sports, thanksgiving and food.  Here are some fun facts about the amount the food American’s traditionally eat on Thanksgiving.

The number of turkeys produced in 2010 together weighted 7.11 billion pounds and were valued at $4.37 billion dollars. USDA National Agricultural Statistics Services estimates that the number of turkey to be raised for Thanksgiving dinner in 2011 to be 248 million.

Cranberry sauce is another Thanksgiving dinner staple. The forecast for cranberry production in 2011 is estimated at 750 million pounds with Wisconsin leading all states in the production of cranberries. 2.4 billion pounds of sweet potatoes, another popular Thanksgiving side dish, are expected to be harvested in 2011 with North Carolina leading production with 972 million pounds of sweet potatoes.

Other important side dishes such as rolls, breads and green beans have also had bountiful harvests this year. Wheat an essential ingredient in bread, rolls and piecrusts produced 2.01 billion bushels while snap green beans producers in states such as Wisconsin harvested 656,340 tons. With such an amazing harvest all American households will be able to have a traditional Thanksgiving green bean casserole on the table this year.

Thanksgiving would not be complete without dessert. The USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service estimates that pumpkin patches in Illinois, California, New York and Ohio will produce at least 100 million pounds of pumpkins per state this year. Cherry pie lovers will be pleased to learn that there will be no shortage of tart cherries in pies this year. Tart cherry production totaled 210 million pounds in 2011 thanks to such states as Michigan.

So, as you sit down this year and eat your average year portion of 13.3 pounds of turkey and 5.3 pounds of sweet potatoes, remember that you and the other 116.7 million households that gathering this holiday should be grateful to the farmers that make this celebrate happen.