How much will the United States eat this Thanksgiving?

Ah, the age-old question. Just how much does the United States take in during their Thanksgiving feasts. And thanks to some research from various sources, I've compiled these fun facts about your Thanksgiving Day eating traditions!

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1) Turkey

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Each year roughly 88% of Americans eat Thanksgiving turkey, according to the National Turkey Federation. The figure for this year is expected to hit around 293.3 million turkey eaters. Americans tend to buy 365 million pounds of turkey during the last week of November, mostly in the form of whole turkeys. In 2022, Americans will spend roughly $1.1 billion on turkeys, an increase of roughly $151 million from the $985 million paid in 2021.

2) Potatoes

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Not sweets, just your regular old spuds to soak in gravy. Americans will consume around 250 million pounds of potatoes. In addition, some people will buy pre-prepared potatoe options at a cost of around $3.7 million.

3) Ham

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An estimated 77million pounds of ham will be consumed this year. This is always a favorite and I'll yell you why. It's hard to have a dry ham, but turkey... Ham's always a good back-up.

4) Cranberries/Cranberry Sauce

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In 2017 these were ranked as the least favorite Thanksgiving Day side dish and yet, 80 million pounds of cranberries, which includes 5,062,500 gallons of canned, jellied cranberry sauce will be purchased. According to the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center, 400 million pounds of cranberries are consumed per year; 20 percent of them during Thanksgiving week.

5) Yams/Sweet Potatoes

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The original spuds ugly, but sweeter brother; around 57 million pounds of sweet potatoes will be purchased for Thanksgiving.

6) Pie

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This one is tough to nail down. My mother-in-law alone makes easily 6 pies or more each Thanksgiving, so the numbers could be astronomically higher, but whether it's pumpkin, apple, or pecan, we'll purchase over 18.9 million pies this Thanksgiving, based on 2019's numbers.

Honorable mention: Cream of Mushroom Soup

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About 40% of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup yearly sales will be this week and it's all for mom's famous green bean casserole.

Caloric Intake

Credit: National Grocers Association / caloriecontrol.org

Overall intake on the holiday eating binge can sit at 3,000 calories, and that's just for one typical Thanksgiving Day dinner. Who has 2 or more to attend? Plan to pack on the pounds or cut down on the intake to stay healthy. By the way a healthy DAILY calorie in-take is around 2,000. By the way, 40 percent of food in the U.S. gets wasted. In 2016, $293 million in food waste was generated during Thanksgiving alone.