Food Statistics
The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, based in Rome, hosts an excellent global statistical database on agricultural trends called FAOSTAT. You can do simple database queries with regard to consumption and prices. Unfortunately many of the statistics only go back to 1990, since the last 20 years have witnessed the most dramatic changes in China, that is an adequate historical record.
Here is a table of some interesting grams per-capita per-day consumption numbers that demonstrate a movement to a more meat (and resource) intensive diet Unfortunately, there is no fish data, but judging from the available numbers, I'd have to say stir-fried pork with egg fried rice is the most popular dish in China but many people are probably lactose-intolerant.
Here is a table of some interesting grams per-capita per-day consumption numbers that demonstrate a movement to a more meat (and resource) intensive diet Unfortunately, there is no fish data, but judging from the available numbers, I'd have to say stir-fried pork with egg fried rice is the most popular dish in China but many people are probably lactose-intolerant.
| Commodity | China 1990 | China 2004 | US 2004 |
| Pork | 58 | 104 | 48 |
| Beef | 3 | 15 | 60 |
| Chicken | 7 | 22 | 120 |
| Rice | 405 | 325 | 36 |
| Wheat | 230 | 190 | 190 |
| Eggs | 23 | 48 | 40 |
| Corn/Maize | 63 | 26 | 194 |
| Milk | 18 | 38 | 700 |
Which country consumes more cabbage than China?
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Interesting question Bungee. I think perhaps you mean which people eat, on average, more cabbage per day, than the Chinese. Well, The Chinese do eat a lot, 70 grams a day (vs US at 10) but not the most. Eastern Europeans LOVE their cabbage, and in Asia, the Koreans chow down.
In 2005, Russians and Latvians ate 77, North Koreans 80, Ukrainians 86, Macedonians 90, Armenians 97, Poles 99, Lithuanians 113, Romanians 128.
But nobody eats more cabbage than a Belorussian or South Korean, each at an incredible 149 grams a day, twice the Chinese rate - now that's a lot of Kapusta and Kim Chi!
You may wonder why I don't cover Korea more on this blog - and the answer is population and growth. South Korea 'only' has 50 million people, and the growth in its primary energy consumption is under 1% a year. Japan is bigger, at nearly 130 million, but they too have had a stable population and energy consumption for many years. In short, these countries are not part of the exponential expansion of energy consumption phenonemon that this blog explores.
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