A Whole Lotta Beef!

One of the first things I noticed about Brazilian eating traditions when I began travelling here was that the majority of Brazilians were confirmed and enthusiastic carnivores. Brazilian churrascarias (buffet restaurantss with armies of waiters who pass tableside carrying enormous skewers of every cut of meat imaginable - and who slice the meat directly from the skewer onto your plate) are to be found throughout the country, and are becoming popular outside Brazil. They are temples to meat, particularly beef.

Brazil's beef industry is one of the largest in the world, and with a beef-hungry domestic market of almost 200 million persons, it doesn't require exports to sustain itself, although Brazil does export a large amount of beef. Unlike American grain-fed feedlot beef, the majority of Brazilian beef is grass-fed, and only 4% of beef cattle spend time in feedlots prior to slaughter. Significantly, BSE is unknown in Brazilian cattle due to the vegetarian diet of Brazilian cattle.

Because of my impression that Brazilians eat a tremendous amount of beef, I decided to find out where Brazilians stand in per capita beef consumption. I found data on the site of the USA Census, which compares per capita consumption of beef worldwide. The data dates from 2000, but I don't imagine that comparative rankings have changed significantly since. Brazilians eat 32.3 kgs (70.84 lbs) of beef annually per capita, less than Americans at 45.3 kgs. (99.66 lbs), but almost the same as Canadians at 32.1kgs. (70.62 lbs). However, nobody eats beef like the Argentinians, the world champion beef eaters, not surprisingly. The per capita consumption in that beef-crazy country is an enormous 70.2 kgs (154.44 lbs)!