Back in 2016, Nathan Yau of Flowing Data created a fascinating set of animated infographics illustrating how the American diet had changed over the prior several decades. A few years later, he used an even more comprehensive data set to update the picture…
The United States Department of Agriculture keeps track of food availability for over 200 items, which can be used to estimate food consumption at the national level. They have data for 1970 through 2019, so we can for example, see how much beef Americans consume per year on average and how that has changed over four decades.
So that’s what I did.
How long will chicken reign supreme? Who wins between lemon and lime? Is nonfat ice cream really ice cream? Does grapefruit ever make a comeback? Find out in the charts below.
The rankings are broken into six main food groups: proteins [pictured above], vegetables, fruits, dairy, grains, and added fats…
Illuminating: “Seeing How Much [and of what] We Ate Over the Years,” from @flowingdata (where one will find larger, more legible versions of the chart above and its companions).
* Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
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As we contemplate consumption, we might recall that it was on this date in 1953 that the Cabinet-level Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) was created under President Eisenhower. Its first Secretary was Oveta Culp Hobby. (In 1979, the Department of Education Organization Act was signed into law, providing for a separate Department of Education. HEW became the Department of Health and Human Services, officially arriving on May 4, 1980.)
