[SilasX]

>It is totally propped up by with subsidies from the US Government. They LOSE money on every cow slaughtered.

I don't think the math works out on that one.

This page [1] gives total meat consumption per person per year as 222.2 lb, which would be (x320 million) = 71 billion lb/year.

This page [2] gives total farm subsidies (which is a high estimate since it include all subsidies not just those to meat) as $20 billion.

So, that's $0.27/lb as an upper bound on the magnitude of the subsidy.

[1] https://www.globalagriculture.org/whats-new/news/en/32921.ht...

[2] https://www.downsizinggovernment.org/agriculture/subsidies

[everdev]

222.2 lb / year sounds high!

I'm not sure if 7M vegetarians would move the needle much, but even ignoring them, that's about 0.6lbs of meat every day for every man, woman and child.

Assuming toddlers and the elderly don't eat that much, that puts some adults closer to a pound of meat a day every day.

That's a lot more meat consumption than I would have estimated.

[yellowapple]

> that's about 0.6lbs of meat every day for every man, woman and child.

That doesn't sound all that high at all. I probably would've guessed slightly lower at less than 0.5lbs/person, but knowing the average American diet that seems well within reason. If I ate a 1/4 lb burger twice a day (i.e. for lunch and dinner) or a 1/2 lb burger once a day (i.e. just for lunch or dinner), that'd be pretty close on beef alone.