The Huge Number Of Americans That Eat Turkey For Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has plenty of traditional foods, and you likely have various opinions on stuffing, or cranberry sauce, or what manner of pie you eat for dessert. Statistically speaking though, you are probably eating turkey with your family or friends this Thanksgiving. That adds up to an incredibly large number of turkey dinners, and there does seem to be specific hard data for that number. The National Turkey Federation — an expert source if ever one existed, and which represents a sizable portion of the turkey farming industry — estimates that 88% of Americans eat turkey on Thanksgiving. 

With the population of the United States sitting at around a cool 342 million people, this would mean that nearly 301 million Americans eat turkey on Turkey Day. This statistic can refer to turkey in any form, but American do appear to be especially willing to buy entire turkeys for Thanksgiving, even if they don't always do a perfect job at thawing frozen turkeys. This number can also include smaller Thanksgiving dinners for those who only bought a portion of turkey, or anyone who bought precooked Thanksgiving turkeys, and even those few people who curate a fast food Thanksgiving dinner with turkey sandwiches. 

How many turkey dinners does this translate to, if you define a "turkey dinner" as a group of people sitting around a table eating turkey? Exact math can be difficult at such a huge scale, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture claims that over 46 million turkeys are eaten every Thanksgiving, which is 21% of the total turkeys sold each year. Most people cannot finish a whole turkey by themselves, so those 46 million turkeys will be split up between those 300 million Americans. That's about six and a half people per turkey, but larger Thanksgiving dinners will include more than one turkey so that there's enough to go around. 

Per USA Today, the average number of people at a Thanksgiving dinner sits at around nine people, a middle ground between large extended family dinners and small, intimate gatherings. With that info, you'd get around 33.5 million turkey dinners: about 301 million Americans seated around 33.5 million tables while eating those 46 million turkeys. Again though, these are just estimations, and it's impossible to account for leftovers and food waste because those vary wildly from household to household. An exact number is likely impossible, but what data is available paints a large picture. Even if Thanksgiving turkey is out and new Thanksgiving meats like pork or salmon are more preferable for some people, turkey remains king across most of the United States.