Is it true that the average person eats 2kg of food a day?
cyaneverfat
Posts: 527 Member
Well...?
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Replies
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Is that the weight as we consume it?
If I take myself as an example:
- breakfast = around 285 grams
- Lunch = 250-350 grams
- Dinner = 500-800 grams of cooked weight (but a lot more than that if you're counting the raw weight of the ingredients)
- snacks: perhaps 50-100 grams
-> 1085 - 1535 grams
Just based on my own diary I see quite large variations depending on the specific foods and dishes I'm consuming.
I can imagine huge variations depending on the kinds of food we eat (raw versus cooked, calorie dense foods versus nutrient dense foods,...) and of course how many calories we consume.2 -
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cyaneverfat wrote: »Well...?
Depends on the study and country.So how does it break out? The figure is a little hard to swallow: 1,996 pounds, or nearly one ton. This is an estimate of how much — by weight — the average American eats over the course of one year. The figure comes from economists who crunched food consumption data collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2011/12/31/144478009/the-average-american-ate-literally-a-ton-this-year#:~:text=So how does it break,the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
That comes down to about 5 lbs a day or 2.3 kilograms. So according to that study yes.1 -
Does anybody have a link that shows what these numbers are actually based on? There are several links in the article, but none that I have seen that explain the origins of the numbers in the tables...cyaneverfat wrote: »Well...?
Depends on the study and country.So how does it break out? The figure is a little hard to swallow: 1,996 pounds, or nearly one ton. This is an estimate of how much — by weight — the average American eats over the course of one year. The figure comes from economists who crunched food consumption data collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2011/12/31/144478009/the-average-american-ate-literally-a-ton-this-year#:~:text=So how does it break,the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
That comes down to about 5 lbs a day or 2.3 kilograms. So according to that study yes.
Without knowing where the numbers come from, I would take the final results with a grain of salt.
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Not something that's ever crossed my mind to think about...I don't really know why it would be meaningful data really. But that's about 4 Lbs...doesn't seem like anything crazy to me.0
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It's kind of a weird thing to focus on, honestly. The weight of your food does not necessarily correspond to the calorie density or nutritional value, so I'm not sure what practical value a study like that has.5
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Huh, interesting question. Taking a look at my Cronometer diaries...it seems that I levitate between 2 and 2.5kgs of food daily.
It also looks the majority of the weight tends to consist of fruits and vegetables (been following a Mediterranean style diet).
No practical use for that info whatsoever though..
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Including liquids that have nutritional/calorie content, like soups and soda pop? Plausible.
I added up the foods from a routine day (I log in grams) and got 2,192g. (Does not include plain water, includes other logged beverages.)
I wonder whether the stats include food thrown out after purchase, though, i.e. wasted at the consumer end.
It's seems pointless, though, as an isolated stat.
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It reminds me of those signs I see at zoos that talk about how much an elephant eats - it's pretty phenomenal, really, but beyond the "wow" factor it's not particularly informative.
Now I'm curious about how many calories elephants need, though...apparently it's more than 70,000 for male African elephants in captivity, and more in the wild.
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Or how gorillas can eat 40 lbs per day. Humans eating 2kg is pretty efficient by comparison.2
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Chickadees eat about 35% of their body weight every day. Hummingbirds eat about 100% of their body weight every day. Bird-like appetites....
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Chickadees eat about 35% of their body weight every day. Hummingbirds eat about 100% of their body weight every day. Bird-like appetites....
If your heart beat as fast as a hummingbird, I bet you could eat 100% of your body weight, too!
Anywhere from 250-1200 beats per minute. That's some goood metabolism.2 -
penguinmama87 wrote: »It reminds me of those signs I see at zoos that talk about how much an elephant eats - it's pretty phenomenal, really, but beyond the "wow" factor it's not particularly informative.
Now I'm curious about how many calories elephants need, though...apparently it's more than 70,000 for male African elephants in captivity, and more in the wild.
That’s a fascinating article. Thanks for sharing!2 -
I drink about 2 to 3l of fluid per day, mostly tea. This already amounts to about 2-3kg. Of course this goes down the drain again. No idea what to do with this info though.1
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Does anybody have a link that shows what these numbers are actually based on? There are several links in the article, but none that I have seen that explain the origins of the numbers in the tables...cyaneverfat wrote: »Well...?
Depends on the study and country.So how does it break out? The figure is a little hard to swallow: 1,996 pounds, or nearly one ton. This is an estimate of how much — by weight — the average American eats over the course of one year. The figure comes from economists who crunched food consumption data collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2011/12/31/144478009/the-average-american-ate-literally-a-ton-this-year#:~:text=So how does it break,the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
That comes down to about 5 lbs a day or 2.3 kilograms. So according to that study yes.
Without knowing where the numbers come from, I would take the final results with a grain of salt.
Sources are at the bottom which I found from the link I posted.
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I'm a "volume herbivore", and easily eat 500 - 600 g of raw and/or cooked veggies per meal. Add a bit of protein, and sure-- I could easily consume 1600-1800 g (1.6-1.8 Kg) a day--not including beverages.
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That chart above confuses me...the biggest category is non-cheese dairy. So, not cheese, not butter (in its own category), and dairy beverages are broken down in that category to 181 of the 600 pound estimate.
What the heck does the other 419 pounds include? I know we don't eat THAT much yogurt....0 -
I'll also point out that all of this data seems to be based on food that was purchased. Given the amount of food waste that happens, actual consumption I would assume to be smaller than these numbers.2
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SuzySunshine99 wrote: »That chart above confuses me...the biggest category is non-cheese dairy. So, not cheese, not butter (in its own category), and dairy beverages are broken down in that category to 181 of the 600 pound estimate.
What the heck does the other 419 pounds include? I know we don't eat THAT much yogurt....
Only 24 pounds of that is ice cream (according to the infographic), so I'm really unsure what it could be.0 -
Cream perhaps? (I wouldn't class that as a milk beverage
)
Obviously yoghurt, and also frozen yoghurt (which I presume doesn't fall under ice-cream)?
And cottage cheese/cream cheese, do those count as cheese or, despite the name, non-cheese dairy?0 -
Cream perhaps? (I wouldn't class that as a milk beverage )
Obviously yoghurt, and also frozen yoghurt (which I presume doesn't fall under ice-cream)?
And cottage cheese/cream cheese, do those count as cheese or, despite the name, non-cheese dairy?
It's confusing to me as well. I don't drink milk. don't eat cereal with milk (haven't since I was about 14) and I drink my coffee black. My main dairy consumption comes from yogurt and what little milk there is in some baked goods (since they are counting cheese separately).0 -
SuzySunshine99 wrote: »That chart above confuses me...the biggest category is non-cheese dairy. So, not cheese, not butter (in its own category), and dairy beverages are broken down in that category to 181 of the 600 pound estimate.
What the heck does the other 419 pounds include? I know we don't eat THAT much yogurt....
I think it's just wrong. It's not consistent with this: https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2014/june/trends-in-us-per-capita-consumption-of-dairy-products-1970-2012
In 2012, milk (which had been declining) is 198.8 lbs, and includes cream, so that's consistent with the 181 lbs for beverage milk, but other dairy (including cheese and butter) only totals 77 lbs.1 -
SuzySunshine99 wrote: »That chart above confuses me...the biggest category is non-cheese dairy. So, not cheese, not butter (in its own category), and dairy beverages are broken down in that category to 181 of the 600 pound estimate.
What the heck does the other 419 pounds include? I know we don't eat THAT much yogurt....
I might eat close to that much yogurt. 😉🤣 Gotta eat something to make up for my shortages in other categories.
I assume that 419 pounds would include fluid milk not consumed as a beverage, whipping cream, sour cream, probably even milk stuff in dairy-heavy food products like chip dips and such. (Is a milk shake counted as a dairy beverage?)
The main chart is mostly foods, not complex food *products*, so the non-cheese, non-butter dairy ingredients in food products are probably in that 419 pounds. Milk is in a lot of stuff.
I don't understand how they break out milk as a beverage. Home use is in cartons/bottles/jugs. How would they know whether we drank it, or put it in soup, etc.? If they assume all consumer cartons are beverage, 181 seems low once kids are in the picture especially - about a pint (half liter) a day?0 -
I am agreement that this information really has no importance, but I had difficulty believing that 2 kg of food is eaten per day. I added up the weight of the food I ate on my most typical day in the past week or so and came up with 1.1 kg and if I added my usual cup of tea, with no additives, it pushed it to 1.4 kg. Let’s not pretend, though, tea is not too much more than just water. Clearly, every day will have variation and I can readily see another half pound or so. I don’t think I very often have 2 kg of food in one day. I could readily see my husband eating that much, however. Interesting, I never gave thought to this.0
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