Dairy products, grains, and chicken top the list of most consumed foods in the United States, but the answer depends on how you measure it. By sheer weight, dairy and grain products dominate. By individual food category, chicken leads all meats at 68.1 pounds per person per year, and potatoes lead all vegetables at 49.4 pounds per person. By calories, grains contribute more to the average American diet than any other food group, supplying about 581 calories per person per day.
Grains: The Biggest Calorie Source
Grains are the single largest contributor to daily calories in the American diet. The average person gets roughly 581 calories per day from grain-based foods, mostly in the form of breads, pastries, and other baked goods. That puts grains ahead of every other food group, including fats, oils, meat, and dairy.
Americans eat about 122 pounds of grain products per person per year, which is 29% more than in 1970. Wheat remains the country’s staple grain by a wide margin, though corn-based products have nearly tripled their share since the 1970s, rising from 4.9 pounds per person to 14 pounds. Think tortillas, corn chips, cornmeal, and the corn syrup found in countless packaged foods.
Chicken Is the Most Consumed Meat
Chicken overtook beef as America’s most popular meat around 2010 and has held the lead since. In 2021, Americans consumed 68.1 pounds of chicken per person on a boneless basis, compared to 56.2 pounds of beef and 47.5 pounds of pork. That gap has continued to widen. The shift reflects decades of changing tastes, lower prices for poultry, and health messaging that steered people toward leaner protein options.
Altogether, meat, poultry, and fish account for about 17% of total daily calories, roughly 416 calories per person per day. That proportion has stayed remarkably stable even as the specific types of meat on American plates have shifted.
Potatoes Lead All Vegetables
Among vegetables, potatoes have been the most consumed for at least 20 years running. In 2019, the average American ate 49.4 pounds of potatoes per person after adjusting for food waste and spoilage. That includes fresh potatoes, frozen fries, chips, and other processed forms. Tomatoes came in second at 31.4 pounds per person, largely driven by pasta sauces, salsa, ketchup, and canned tomato products rather than fresh tomatoes alone. Onions ranked a distant third at just 9.4 pounds per person, highlighting how heavily American vegetable consumption leans on just two crops.
Cooking Oils Have Quietly Surged
One of the most dramatic shifts in the American diet over the past 50 years involves cooking oils. Americans now consume about 36 pounds of cooking oils per person per year, more than three times the amount consumed in the early 1970s. Added plant-based fats and oils, including salad and cooking oil, margarine, and shortening, are now the second-largest source of daily calories at roughly 518 per person per day. That’s more calories than all meat, poultry, and fish combined. This increase reflects the rise of fried foods, processed snacks, and restaurant meals that rely heavily on soybean, canola, and other vegetable oils.
How the American Diet Breaks Down by Calories
The average American consumes about 2,481 calories per day. Here’s where those calories come from, ranked by contribution:
- Grains: 581 calories per day (breads, pasta, baked goods, cereals)
- Added fats and oils: 518 calories per day (cooking oils, shortening, margarine)
- Meat, poultry, and fish: 416 calories per day
- Dairy, sweeteners, fruits, vegetables, and other foods: the remaining balance
This ranking surprises many people. Grains and oils together account for nearly half of all calories consumed, which makes them the true foundation of the modern American diet regardless of what people think they eat the most of. The foods Americans picture on their plates, like chicken breasts and salads, contribute far less to total intake than the bread, pasta, cooking oil, and baked goods that surround them.
What Has Changed Over 50 Years
The American diet looks meaningfully different from what it was in 1970. Grain consumption is up 29%. Cooking oil consumption has tripled. Chicken has replaced beef as the dominant protein. Yogurt consumption has grown to about 1.2 gallons per person per year, a product that barely registered in American diets a few decades ago.
Total calorie intake actually dropped slightly between 2000 and 2010, falling from 2,545 to 2,481 calories per day. But the composition of those calories shifted toward more oils and slightly fewer grains. The proportional contribution from meat stayed flat at 17%, suggesting Americans didn’t eat less meat so much as swap one type for another, trading beef for chicken while keeping their overall protein intake steady.