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Do You Know These Shocking Super Bowl Consumption Statistics?

One billion chicken wings, which means 500 million chickens will be killed for us to enjoy the game. Pounds of potato chips consumed; 28 million. Pounds of avocados consumed; 53.5 million. Number of football fields worth of farmland to grow all that corn, potatoes, and avocados is 222,792. And last 325.5 million is the number of gallons of beer drank by Americans that day.
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Deflated balls or not, we are a society that over consumes.

This weekend is Super Bowl weekend, and if you've ever seen the rough estimates on what is consumed, it's frightening.

I posted as many stats as I could find on my One Fit City Facebook page. I surfed the web and grabbed random stats to prove a point.

Here's the highlights

1 Billion chicken wings. 500 million chickens will be killed for us to enjoy the game.

28 million: Pounds of potato chips consumed.

53.5 million: Pounds of avocados consumed.

222,792: Number of football fields worth of farmland to grow all that

corn, potatoes, and avocados

325.5 million: Gallons of beer drank by Americans that day. You could fill almost 500 Olympic sized pools.

I'm not saying this is entirely bad. In fact, I'll be eating my fair share, because it's one day. I won't go over board, because that's where the problem is.

North America wide, Monday after the Superbowl ant-acid sales increase anywhere from 18-23 per cent depending on who's data you view. There is also anywhere from 6-8 million people who won't go to work Monday.

This is what I want people to see.

Go ahead and have fun from time to time and let lose. Keep things as a treat, and enjoy those days when the only rule about "Eating Club" is there are no rules(Sorry, bad "Fight Club" analogy).

I want people to see this from the numbers. Over eating, and putting stress on the system has negative effects. Your body needs the proper fuel, one day isn't the problem. But I need people to realize that we are having to take pills and drinks to undo our eating habits.

Imagine what's going on in your body?

I'm not judging anyone, I haven't walked a mile in your shoes. Superbowl, Christmas, Thanksgiving, birthdays. Those aren't the problem. The specific days where we enjoy prosperity, aren't the problem. What are we doing daily? North America, the facts are there, we over consume daily. Superbowl Sunday just let's us see some amazing stats on what we are really doing to ourselves.

I will say this

We need to think of it like 500 million animals will die, not to give us nutrients we need, but simply so we can eat ourselves sick. I'm not a vegetarian, not even close, but I respect every person and animal on this planet. If you order a pizza with bacon, and ground beef, a cow and a pig had to die for that meal. Killing an animal for pleasure doesn't sit well with me, that's what this is. Killing an animal to provide nutrients and a meal for us, and being appreciative of the sacrifice, that I'm ok with.

When we over eat, there is a demand put on the environment. The products we over consume and didn't need had to be harvested. That produces greenhouse gases... Yadda Yadda Yadda, you get the idea.

This is not a lecture, this is a simple reminder.

Our nation is not healthy currently. We cost ourselves a lot of money in health care that could be avoided. We also have children who go to sleep hungry.

What we need, and this is the point of my blog. We need to find the balance. Enjoy the days where we consume so much food that that stats are astounding to read, but balance them with far more days where we fuel our bodies to be energetic, make memories and avoid the hospital.

Also, maybe we could eat enough so only 2.5 million of us take the day off? Maybe only see an 8-10 per cent bump in ant-acid sales?

I'm going to have a ton of fun this weekend. I'm cheering for the Seahawks, and I'm going to eat some wings, and not think twice about any of my choices. I will enjoy the prosperity and freedom of my life. But then, I'm going to wake up Monday, make a dang smoothie, and be grateful that I can fuel my body with purpose, and avoid causing my body harm. I'm going to do that all week.

It's about balance. No guilt, just a reminder we have a problem to fix.

Go Seahawks!

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