Beef Consumption in The Us

            Age and gender affect consumer purchases of beef products. According to CSFII data, “beef consumption varied greatly by gender, with males eating 86 pounds versus 48 pounds for females. Males ages 20-39 ate more beef than did males in other age groups. Males ages 12-19 ate more ground beef than did other age groups.”  Middle aged males consumed relatively more steaks, beef dishes, and processed beef, while males ages 60 and older consumed relatively more stew beef. Teenage females were the biggest consumers of beef in their group. They ate more ground beef than did females in other age groups but less stew beef, steaks, beef dishes, processed beef, and other beef cuts than other females. After age 19, total consumption of beef products by females begins to decline.

            Region is a large factor in the consumption of beef. Consumers in the Midwest ate more beef per capita than consumers in the other surveyed regions. The dominant beef product eaten in all regions was ground beef. Consumers in the Northeast ate relatively more steaks and processed beef per capita than did consumers in other regions, while consumers in the Midwest ate relatively more stew beef. Beef consumption in urban and rural areas differed significantly. The CSFII data show that consumers in rural areas ate more beef (75 pounds) per capita than did consumers in suburban or urban areas. More ground beef (33 pounds) was the eaten in rural areas than any other beef product, followed by stew beef (12 pounds), steaks (11 pounds), processed beef (8 pounds), beef dishes (6 pounds), and other beef cuts (4 pounds). Like consumers in rural areas, consumers in suburban and urban areas ate more ground beef than other beef products.

            The popularity of the high protein, low carbohydrate diets such as the Adkins diet has driven an increase in beef sales in recent years. There has been a slight resurgence in beef consumption in recent years with the popularity of the Atkins diet and the South Beach diet. These diets promote a high-protein, low-carbohydrate approach to weight loss and encourage the consumption of red meat to aid with weight loss. In fact, consumer demand for beef has increased nearly 10 percent since 1998 after declining for 20 years partly as a result of these fad diets.

Consumers have consuming more poultry over past few decades, and cutting back on their beef consumption as a result. This has helped to spur a 40% increase in per capita consumption of poultry over this period. Part of this shift to poultry has been due to the increasing popularity of Fast Food that is typically dominated by poultry. White meat is often viewed as being a healthier alternative to red meat. An explanation also lies in the falling price of poultry. A report by the USDA shows that after allowing for inflation, the cost of beef in 2000 was roughly the same as it was in 1935. In contrast, the real price of poultry in 2000 was only one third of its cost in 1935.

A significant challenge to the U.S. beef industry in the past few years has been the discovery of two cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or “mad cow” disease, in the U.S.

BSE, an invariably fatal, neurological disease found in cattle, was recognized in cattle in the mid-1980s and became a human health issue in 1996 when its human form, variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease (vCJD), also invariably fatal, was recognized.1 If the number of BSE cases reported in the United States were to substantially increase, some analyses have suggested that people will consume less beef .