Shocking facts about Hungarians’ food consumption

Statistics show Hungarians seem to ignore every dietary recommendation. The numbers indicate that we eat more and more animal-based products and less and less plant-based products, but at least we drink less alcohol.

Based on the country’s food supply, we can determine what Hungarians consume in the highest and lowest quantities. In other words, we can get a picture of what our diet is like.

Portfolio reports that based on statistics from 2017 collected by KSH, in 2017,

the entire food supply for the whole country was approximately 680 kg of food per person, which is approximately 2 kg of food/person/day.

This is how our food supply looked like in 2017:

• 30% fruit and vegetables
• 24% dairy products
• 13% flour and rice
• 12% meat
• 8% potatoes
• 6% fats
• 5% sugar and honey
• 2% eggs

More meat, less vegetables

The vast majority of our food supply, namely 1/3 of it was made up of various kinds of meat products (including dairy and eggs). The supply in meat continues to increase annually. Last year, it was 20% more than the previous five years’ average. The demand seems to be the highest for chicken (47%).

Besides meat, Hungarians seem to consume a lot of dairy products as well. Milk production exceeded 1900 million litres in 2017, for the first time since 2003.

Meanwhile, the supply was 1% less in plant-based products like vegetables and fruit. The entire supply was about 0.5 kg of fruit and vegetables per person per day.

More imported potatoes, decreasing local supply

Local production of potatoes has been decreasing since 2014 (21% less in 2017 than 2016), and the export of potatoes increased by 18%.

We drink less

When it comes to alcohol, we seem to do a little better and drink a little less. The average in 2017 was 9.1 litres of alcohol/person (which is 0.4% less than in 2016). The average was approximately,

• 25 litres of wine per person (2 litres less than the year before) which is less than one bottle of wine per week
• 68 litres of beer per person (1 litre more than before) which is about 2.5 bottles of beer a week
• 3 litres of spirits/person/year

Source: www.portfolio.hu