PSA don't experiment on Thanksgiving
- Thread starter Apparition
- Start date
We're going to go to a boondocking area about 45 minutes from home and just chill with my sister's in law and and do some drinking and chilling for 3 or 4 days.
OP
OP
Americans Have Had Enough Turkey, Thank You
Per-capita consumption peaked decades ago, and inflation-adjusted prices stopped falling around then too.
November 22, 2023 at 5:30 AM CST
It’s that time of year when Americans talk turkey. Somewhere close to 90% of us will even eat some on Thanksgiving, past polls indicate. Yet turkey occupies an odd spot in the national consciousness. It’s important, and when prices rise sharply as they did in 2021 in 2022 it can even become a political issue. But consumption has been sliding for decades. Outside of Thanksgiving and Christmas turkey is a niche protein, miles behind the Big Three of chicken, beef and pork.
First, the prices: After earlier forecasts that they would be down for Thanksgiving, the US Department of Agriculture’s final pre-holiday turkey retail report has frozen whole turkeys costing 14% to 15% more than a year ago, and more-expensive fresh turkeys 7%-8% less. So that’s a little confusing. The long view is similarly mixed. Turkey is much, much cheaper in real terms — that is, relative to the prices of the other goods and services consumers buy — than it used to be. But this downward price trend came to a halt two decades ago.
Part of what we’re seeing may be the limits of industrialized poultry production. Seventy percent of US turkeys came from farms raising more than 100,000 of them a year, as of the 2017 Census of Agriculture (the most recent data available), and this year 68% of estimated US turkey production is coming from just six states.
Giant turkey farms, specialized turkey-growing regions and birds bred for rapid growth and lots of white meat bring with them all sorts of efficiencies, but also risks like avian influenza, which has been intermittently hammering poultry producers since the 1990s and played a big role in driving up turkey, chicken and especially egg prices in 2022. As my fellow Bloomberg Opinion columnist Amanda Little wrote last Thanksgiving, the result is a vicious cycle: “The more deaths there are in the poultry industry, the more chickens and turkeys are raised to offset those deaths. And the ever-larger populations are, in turn, more likely to spread disease and increase the impact when it hits.”
With chicken, which makes up the overwhelming majority of US poultry production, this cycle has no end in sight. The real price of chicken has, as with turkey, been mostly flat since the 1990s after steep declines earlier, but Americans keep eating more and more of it. Per-capita chicken availability — the USDA proxy for consumption, estimated from production and population data — was 68.1 pounds, bones not included, in 2021, up from 54.2 in 2000, 42.4 in 1990 and 14.3 in 1950. That put it first among the meats, ahead of beef (56.2 pounds), pork (47.5 pounds) and seafood of all kinds (19 pounds as of 2020).
Turkey is on a different path. After rapid increases in the post-World War II decades, per-capita availability peaked in 1996 at 14.3 pounds. As of 2021, it was down to 12.1.
Turkey’s appeal is limited. It can — when prepared perfectly — be magnificent eating, but the ever-multiplying experiments with brining and deep-frying and sous-viding and other cooking methods are indications of how hard it is to get just right. (For whatever it’s worth, I’m cooking duck for Thanksgiving this year.) Big increases in production and declines in real prices, along with the belief that poultry made for healthier food than beef or pork, brought large consumption gains through the 1980s that then hit a wall in the mid-1990s. Visions of turkey burgers taking over the fast-food world never materialized. Turkey exports haven’t really taken off either.
Which is maybe just … fine. The US turkey industry has been showing modest signs of deconsolidation in recent years — in 2012, 72.3% of US turkeys came from farms raising more than 100,000 of them a year and 73% from the top six states. Heritage turkeys that grow more slowly, are more flavorful and less susceptible to disease and, yes, cost a lot more, seem to be on the rise, although statistics are hard to come by.
Productivity gains are great on an economy-wide level, but not every agricultural commodity needs to become endlessly more abundant and cheap.
Per-capita consumption peaked decades ago, and inflation-adjusted prices stopped falling around then too.
November 22, 2023 at 5:30 AM CST
It’s that time of year when Americans talk turkey. Somewhere close to 90% of us will even eat some on Thanksgiving, past polls indicate. Yet turkey occupies an odd spot in the national consciousness. It’s important, and when prices rise sharply as they did in 2021 in 2022 it can even become a political issue. But consumption has been sliding for decades. Outside of Thanksgiving and Christmas turkey is a niche protein, miles behind the Big Three of chicken, beef and pork.
First, the prices: After earlier forecasts that they would be down for Thanksgiving, the US Department of Agriculture’s final pre-holiday turkey retail report has frozen whole turkeys costing 14% to 15% more than a year ago, and more-expensive fresh turkeys 7%-8% less. So that’s a little confusing. The long view is similarly mixed. Turkey is much, much cheaper in real terms — that is, relative to the prices of the other goods and services consumers buy — than it used to be. But this downward price trend came to a halt two decades ago.
Part of what we’re seeing may be the limits of industrialized poultry production. Seventy percent of US turkeys came from farms raising more than 100,000 of them a year, as of the 2017 Census of Agriculture (the most recent data available), and this year 68% of estimated US turkey production is coming from just six states.
Giant turkey farms, specialized turkey-growing regions and birds bred for rapid growth and lots of white meat bring with them all sorts of efficiencies, but also risks like avian influenza, which has been intermittently hammering poultry producers since the 1990s and played a big role in driving up turkey, chicken and especially egg prices in 2022. As my fellow Bloomberg Opinion columnist Amanda Little wrote last Thanksgiving, the result is a vicious cycle: “The more deaths there are in the poultry industry, the more chickens and turkeys are raised to offset those deaths. And the ever-larger populations are, in turn, more likely to spread disease and increase the impact when it hits.”
With chicken, which makes up the overwhelming majority of US poultry production, this cycle has no end in sight. The real price of chicken has, as with turkey, been mostly flat since the 1990s after steep declines earlier, but Americans keep eating more and more of it. Per-capita chicken availability — the USDA proxy for consumption, estimated from production and population data — was 68.1 pounds, bones not included, in 2021, up from 54.2 in 2000, 42.4 in 1990 and 14.3 in 1950. That put it first among the meats, ahead of beef (56.2 pounds), pork (47.5 pounds) and seafood of all kinds (19 pounds as of 2020).
Turkey is on a different path. After rapid increases in the post-World War II decades, per-capita availability peaked in 1996 at 14.3 pounds. As of 2021, it was down to 12.1.
Turkey’s appeal is limited. It can — when prepared perfectly — be magnificent eating, but the ever-multiplying experiments with brining and deep-frying and sous-viding and other cooking methods are indications of how hard it is to get just right. (For whatever it’s worth, I’m cooking duck for Thanksgiving this year.) Big increases in production and declines in real prices, along with the belief that poultry made for healthier food than beef or pork, brought large consumption gains through the 1980s that then hit a wall in the mid-1990s. Visions of turkey burgers taking over the fast-food world never materialized. Turkey exports haven’t really taken off either.
Which is maybe just … fine. The US turkey industry has been showing modest signs of deconsolidation in recent years — in 2012, 72.3% of US turkeys came from farms raising more than 100,000 of them a year and 73% from the top six states. Heritage turkeys that grow more slowly, are more flavorful and less susceptible to disease and, yes, cost a lot more, seem to be on the rise, although statistics are hard to come by.
Productivity gains are great on an economy-wide level, but not every agricultural commodity needs to become endlessly more abundant and cheap.
Interesting study, makes sense.
Found out someone is bringing a smoked ham tomorrow. So probably have more of that than turkey assuming it comes out good. We usually do prime rib for Christmas which is my favorite.
My family used to get honey baked ham on Thanksgiving. My dad has never liked turkey, so we always had something else available. I always ate more of that. Wife's family doesn't like honey baked ham, but lots of cooks, so often end up with a ham that's really good.
Same-same here. I don't really care for turkey either, which is but one reason that we usually go out. This year, daughter screwed around until it was too late to get reservations, so we're having it at her house. She's also doing up a small ham for me, and anyone else who wants some. We were doing the prime rib thing for Xmas for a couple of years - its OK, but I'd rather have ham...
OP
My sister doesn't like ham so we used to not have it.
We did this ham a couple years ago and liked it so we will be doing it again this year.
If she didn't cook it or bring it she needs to STFU and smile. Anybody who bitches to anyone about anything served in my home unless they got food poisoning would never, ever, get another invite. That would include my own mother.
OP
