--- title: What America Eats: Inside the Changing American Diet description: An interactive look at what Americans eat--and how much of it--from 1970 to today. canonical: https://time.com/2861385/american-diet/ author: Pratheek Rebala article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-06-12T18:37:58.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:05:38.899Z article:section: Health og:title: Interactive: Inside the Changing American Diet og:description: An interactive look at what Americans eat--and how much of it--from 1970 to today. og:url: https://time.com/2861385/american-diet/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Interactive: Inside the Changing American Diet twitter:description: An interactive look at what Americans eat--and how much of it--from 1970 to today. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Inside the Changing American Diet > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ## Video: The Truth About Fat [Watch (HLS stream): The Truth About Fat](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/uYGhfNfS.m3u8) (5:15)  _Published 2014-06-12. When you want to lose weight or get healthy, what is the first thing you would normally cut from your diet? If you said fat, you're not alone_ by [Pratheek Rebala](https://time.com/author/pratheek-rebala/) ## Pratheek Rebala Jun 12, 2014 6:37 PM UTC by [Pratheek Rebala](https://time.com/author/pratheek-rebala/) ## Pratheek Rebala Jun 12, 2014 6:37 PM UTC As Bryan Walsh notes in [this week’s magazine](http://time.com/2863227/ending-the-war-on-fat/?pcd=hp-magmod), the decades-long vilification of fat has driven people to eat more sugar and carbohydrates, which new research suggests may be the chief drivers of rising obesity and Type 2 Diabetes. Here’s a look at how what fills the American plate has evolved over the last 40 years. Slide the year below to see how consumption patterns have changed. Select each food group to see the changing make up of each over the years. The data shows that Americans have greatly increased their consumption of poultry in lieu of red meat. In 2004, chicken overtook beef as the most consumed meat in the country. Similarly, dairy products declined markedly in popularity as vegetable and grain consumption increased. **Methodology**Data for food consumption is provided by the United States Department of Agriculture’s [National Nutrient Database](http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods). Figures represent the “loss-adjusted availability” of a given type of food per capita, a measure of how much of that food is available per person. 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