The chart below shows purchase levels of four meats in the UK from 1974 to 2011

The line graph illustrates how much

chicken

,

beef

,

pork

and

lamb

British citizens bought between 1974 and 2011. Units are measured in grams per person per day.

Overall

, the most striking feature is that the consumption of all types of meat decreased over the period, with the exception of

chicken

, which by 2011 had overtaken

beef

in terms of the most popular meat.

Also

,

pork

and

lamb

remained the least popular meats, but had reversed positions by 2011.

Beef

and

chicken

were the most common types of meat in 1974,

however

,

while

beef

stood at just under 200g,

chicken

was at the level of around 125g. Over the next twenty years

beef

plummeted and hit a trough at roughly 90g in the 1980s, but

then

stabilised and recovered to amount to around 110g in 2011.

In contrast

,

chicken

experienced a surge, overtaking

beef

in 1997 and

then

increasing slightly more to just under 200g in 2011, the same level as

beef

at the beginning of the period. As for

lamb

and

pork

, they had a similar pattern of decline and had nearly halved by 2011.

Lamb

, which, in turn, stood at the same point as

chicken

in 1974, saw a slight rise in the early 1980s but dropped dramatically to just under 50g in 2011.

Likewise

,

pork

, which was at

the

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a

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level of just under 100g in 1974, rose insignificantly in the 1980s and

then

had

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plummeted to just over 50g by 2011.