Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbomb here with a festive classic for you. In this one, we're talking turkey. That is the history and modern traditions around consuming this large bird, around American Thanksgiving and other holidays and beyond, Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel Bomb Here. It might come in forth on the list of America's top protein choices, but one day out of
the year, nothing else will do. Every Thanksgiving Day, chicken, beef, and pork all step aside and make room for their poultry campadre the turkey. For turkeys, however, Thanksgiving isn't such a blessing. It's estimated that in twenty seventeen, a whopping forty five million turkeys were consumed for the occasion, some suffering the fate of being stuffed not only with stuffing but also with a duck and chicken to create that
poultry profusion called the turducan. There are a couple competing origin stories for the Things Giving feast, including a couple meals shared between Native Americans and European colonists stretching back
to the sixteen hundreds. But it wasn't an official American holiday until President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed November twenty sixth, eighteen sixty three a national day of Giving thanks Before that, Thanksgivings, days spent in prayer thanking God for some fortuitous event or another, were periodically celebrated by New England colonists, but not anything like the level of the national Thanksgiving festivities
we see today. Presidents following Lincoln annually proclaimed the holiday the last Thursday in November until nineteen forty two, when Franklin D. Roosevelt switched it to the fourth Thursday in November, not necessarily the last, in an attempt to kick off
the holiday shopping season a touch earlier. But turkey didn't immediately join the Thanksgiving scene as the staple centerpiece, and interestingly enough, the turkeys that you see in the grocery store today don't really resemble the birds that pilgrims in Native Americans may or may not have actually feasted on. Turkeys were eaten by both peoples, but had always been
bred primarily for their striking, dark colored feathers. That plumage creates tiny pin pricks of pigment in the flesh that turned off many consumers because of this and debates about which size was most appropriate for both private and commercial usage. A breeding campaign was conducted in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century in search of a better selling bird. The modern result is the broad breasted white turkey. These turkeys are specters of their ancestors.
They've been bred to be colorless, larger, and have bigger breasts. Whether you roast it, smoke it, grille, or deep fry it, turkey has really wedged itself a spot on Thanksgiving Day dinner table. Some eighty eight percent of American families eat turkey on Thanksgiving Day. Back in nineteen twenty nine, Americans only ate about eighteen million turkeys annually. By nineteen seventy,
that number was approximately one hundred and sixteen million. In twenty seventeen, the number of turkeys raised in the United States was about two hundred and forty five million, and that wasn't even a peak year. In nineteen ninety six, US growers produced a record three hundred and three million turkeys, But that doesn't seem to be because more people have been eating turkeys at Thanksgiving. That forty five million number I mentioned at the top of the episode has been
holding pretty steady. Back in nineteen seventy, about fifty percent of the turkey consumed the United States was eaten around the holidays. Over the years, that number has dropped to about twenty nine percent, meaning people are eating it throughout the year. We know this because overall turkey consumption has about doubled in that same time period. In nineteen seventy, Americans chowed down on an average of eight pounds a little more than three and a half kilos of turkey
per person per year. That number has now climbed to about eighteen pounds. Perhaps all those turkey burgers are the reason turkey is a year round fixture on many menus today, and although Thanksgiving is still big business in the industry, turkey would probably retain its popularity even if something else like lamb tried to muscle its way into that special all holiday celebration. Today's episode is based on the article would turkey be so popular if it didn't have its
own holiday? On HowStuffWorks dot Com, written by Jessica Toothman. Brain Stuff is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang four more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.