An entrecôte straight out of a picture book.Image: g-hospitality
Entrecôte, Coq au Vin or Châteaubriand – if you want to eat a vegetarian diet as a tourist in France, it is particularly difficult. In France, a good piece of meat is just as important on the plate in a restaurant as a baguette or a croissant is for breakfast. And the French also like to eat meat and sausage products in their own four walls.
But this needs to be stopped now. Because France’s government has the population last week called for more sensible meat consumption. Instead, she recommends consuming more fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts and whole grain products. Not only so that the French people eat healthier, but also for climate protection reasons. Agricultural production accounts for 20 percent of France’s CO₂ footprint and meat production accounts for 61 percent.
But how much meat do the French actually eat each year? According to figures from Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) It is around 84.6 kilograms per person per year. This puts France in 9th place in the European ranking, well ahead of Switzerland, which ranks 28th out of 40 countries with per capita consumption of 66.7 kilograms.
The French particularly enjoy cooking or ordering beef. With per capita consumption of 23.2 kilograms, the Grande Nation ranks third in Europe in this category. Only Luxembourg and Ireland eat more beef than France. When it comes to pork and chicken, however, our western neighbor is only in the upper midfield.
By the way, the largest “flesh tigers” in Europe are the Iberians. With an annual meat consumption of 104.8 kilograms, the Spanish are the leaders in the European ranking. Followed closely by the Portuguese with 98.42 kilograms.
In a global comparison, Spain and Portugal are only in 14th and 16th place. The most meat is consumed in Tonga – 147.7 kilograms per person per year are eaten on the South Sea island. The other top places go to Mongolia (131.8 kilograms), St. Vincent and the Grenadines (124.4 kilograms) and Hong Kong (123.4 kilograms). (pre)