Desvendando o consumo de carne no Brasil: influência do gênero e da geração sobre o consumo de carne

Abstract

Meat consumption is influenced by several factors, such as gender, generation, culture, religion, income and schooling, which results in different consumption patterns around the world. Throughout history, meat has been associated with masculinity, leading some men to consume it in greater quantity as a way of reinforcing the qualities attributed to the male gender. This consumption pattern can have negative impacts on safety food and nutrition (SAN). Furthermore, the younger generations, in the context of modern diets where choice is plentiful, tend to consume less meat due to the access to nutritional and environmental information. The Brazilian population is one of the largest consumers of meat in the world, even if there are differences related to inequalities in access to food. However, to date, we do not know how the gender and age affect meat consumption in Brazil. Therefore, taking as reference a representative sample of the population of Brazil (Pesquisa de Orçamentos Familiares - POF 2017-2018), in this work we evaluated how gender and cohorts generations relate to meat consumption. We analyzed the data through descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression. Our results point to variations in the meat consumption among men and women in different generational cohorts. we observed reduction in beef consumption (13% for women and 17% for men) of Generation Silent for Generation Z, and increase or stability in the consumption of white meat, in addition to growth in the consumption of processed meats (72% for women and 92% for men). Furthermore, we have shown that women reduce their consumption of total meat by up to 6g a day in relation to men. In general, we conclude that among meat consumers, young women are the ones with the lowest consumption. It is important to consider the factors that contribute to these differences by proposing campaigns to reduce meat consumption, in order to prevent such initiatives from reproducing injustices in access to meat, even in a context of planetary demand to reduce the consumption of this food.