Those who have seen South Park’s 18th season’s second episode “Gluten Free Ebola”, might somewhat comprehend the downward spiral that American dietary behavior has taken over the years. In the animated episode, the current food-oriented state of affairs is parodied, when United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reverses the food pyramid, thus giving more credence to a fat and oil based food diet. As it turns out, the show-runners were not so wrong after all – proven by the diet chart released by National Geographic that shows how a whopping 37 percent of daily calories intake of an average American is actually from the ‘sugar and fat’ group (as opposed to just 22 percent from the ‘glutenous’ grain group).

When translated to solid figures, an American consumes 266 g of sugar and fat every day, which is more than double the quantity of the world’s average that stands at a mere 130 g. The figure has balefully risen – with the American ‘fat-intake’ average being just 186 g in 1961. And, if we compare the American diet to emerging economies from the global avenue – a typical Chinese person consumes just 60 g of fat, while an ordinary Indian consumes around 129 g of fat per day. But of course, singling out the American diet would be a bit unfair. To that end, the Brazilians also join the unhealthy bandwagon with 260 g of daily sugar-and-fat intake – which comes to 28 percent of their daily calories intake.

There another interesting statistical evidence found from the charts, and it pertains to daily meat-based intake. In that regard, an average American consumes 381 g of meat, while the world’s average is 173 g. However, in the realm of non-vegetarian diet, it is the Hong Kong people who lead the way with a whopping average of 695 g of meat being eaten every day (while it was just 203 g in 1961)!

If interested, you can through the myriad of food charts provided at the National Geographic site.

Image Credits: National Geographic