9,000,000,000 slaughtered each year - do we eat this much meat?

[Sarah Ibarruri]

I'm not a member of PETA or anything, but I found this information in a Spanish-speaking blog and if true, it's pretty jaw-dropping.

Wiki says:

In the United States, around nine billion animals are slaughtered every year.[citation needed] (this includes about 150.4 million cattle, bison, sheep, hogs, and goats and 8.9 billion chickens, turkeys, ducks, etc.;[citation needed] in 2009, 13,450,000 long tons (13,670,000 t) of beef were consumed in the U.S. alone.[1] In Canada, 650 million animals are killed annually.[2] In the European Union, the annual figure is 300 million cattle, sheep, and pigs, and four billion (an unverified number) chickens.

Is this data correct? It said citation needed.

I checked the populations of the U.S. and EU and found:

U.S. has a population of: 316,000,000
EU has a population of: 507,000,000

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. Looks like the US eats a heck of a lot of chicken. nt

[Sarah Ibarruri]

8. Sure does! Every time I go to a restaurant, most of what's offered is chicken this, chicken that.nt

[RebelOne]

2. Well, as a vegetarian, I am not guilty of eating any dead animals. n/t

[KittyWampus]

5. probably a few dead insects though. Especially if you eat kale.

I don't go out of my way to eat bugs but I've learned to be less squeamish when I find out the kale from my garden had a few hidden aphids that didn't get washed off.

[B2G]

3. We export a shitload of meat

http://www.beefusa.org/beefindustrystatistics.aspx

[Sarah Ibarruri]

9. Good link, thanks nt

[NuclearDem]

4. Whether that number is accurate or not, we eat way too much meat.

Well, other people do. I'm vegan.

[handmade34]

6. "do we eat this much meat?"

not me... I haven't eaten meat for decades

but yes... per millions

Per-person, an average American meat-eater is responsible for the suffering and death of 28 land animals and an estimated 175 aquatic animals per year, totaling over 15,000 individual animals over a 75 year lifespan.

http://farmusa.org/statistics11.html

[Jenoch]

7. Americans probably do eat too much meat,

but those slaughter numbers are misleading because much of it is exported.

[MFM008]

10. what a blood bath

I do eat meat but try to keep it down.

[FarCenter]

11. On the farm, a family of 5 consumed a steer, 2 hogs, and about 150 chickens, ducks, geese each year

So half a large animal and a couple dozen poultry per capita annually is about right.