I'd like to see the stats on beef consumption. Cows are way worse for the planet when it comes to climate change. People eat more chicken than they used to because beef prices have skyrocketed. I wonder what the actual change in carbon emissions looks like.

I knew I’d find this here! Only critique is you forgot the ‘adn’ typo

The FAO, unfortunately, has quite a history in downplaying things and sticking their thumb on the scale in favor of the meat and dairy industry on things like this

In a sign of the atmosphere in the FAO at this time, a fourth veteran insider, “Mary Wagyu”, claims to have been admonished after preparing Meatless Monday leaflets for distribution in the cafeteria of an FAO heads of state food security summit in 2008. “Remove and destroy them,” a senior FAO executive said, according to Wagyu. “These will not be put in people’s trays.”

In 2009 a second FAO report called Livestock in the Balance was delayed for several months while the FAO’s leadership tried to dilute references to harm caused by the meat industry, arguing that this had already been covered by Livestock’s Long Shadow. When the research team resisted the pressure, management stepped in and manually rewrote key passages over their heads, sparking what Steinfeld called “a mini-revolution”. About a dozen staff members involved in preparing the report withdrew their names from the paper in protest.

[...]

Between 2012 and 2019, “the lobbyists obviously managed to influence things”, Holstein said. “They had a strong impact on the way things were done at the FAO and there was a lot of censorship. It was always an uphill struggle getting the documents you produced past the office for corporate communications and one had to fend off a good deal of editorial vandalism. You had to accept relatively small steps forward in changing the narrative on livestock.”

Steinfeld added that meat lobby representatives and diplomats would talk to senior FAO managers and encourage them not to invest in work that dealt with environmental impacts.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/20/the-anti-livestock-people-are-a-pest-how-un-fao-played-down-role-of-farming-in-climate-change

Lately chicken is starting to get more expensive than pork here. Chicken on discount vs pork on discount, pork is 2x cheaper per kilo.

Beef is still way more expensive though

It’s my understanding that it’s cheaper, healthier, and more environmentally friendly than beef, and I’d bet its growth is inversely correlated to beef consumption.

Also it’s the staple protein for people who are trying to be more fit because of how lean parts like the breast can be.

poor people can't afford meat. when their incomes rise, the first thing they do is buy more meat.

chicken is the cheapest meat. it also remains cheap while beef/fish/pork has skyrocketed in costs, making them far less affordable.

The "we" here is global, so I don't think your question has a neat answer that can be applied in all regions.

From the report:

The global supply of terrestrial animal source food (TASF), namely milk and dairy products, eggs and meat, has rapidly increased between 1961 and 2022. The increase in per capita supply of TASF was driven by three commodities: eggs, poultry meat and pig meat.

This chart is not talking about causes but it is interesting:

More protein is consumed overall in higher income countries but less is coming from plants and more from animals.

Poultry is projected to account for about half of the global growth in meat production (see Figure B39 and Figure B40) due to sustained profitability and favourable meat-to-feed price ratios.

About two-thirds of all meat is expected to be consumed by one-third of the world’s population in 2032, which is only a slight improvement from the base period (see Figure B42).

Increases in meat consumption have raised concerns about long-term sustainability, given the pressure that this consumption exerts on global resources, as well as the meat production sector’s contributions to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These mounting environmental and health concerns are expected to continue to shift consumer preferences away from red and processed meat, notably beef, towards leaner and allegedly more environmentally friendly alternatives, notably poultry and fish. These shifts are especially pronounced in consumers in Europe and Northern America. In sub-Saharan Africa, demand for poultry will primarily be driven by the greater affordability of poultry compared to beef, rather than by long-term sustainability concerns.

So:

1. Greater overall global consumption of protein
2. As protein consumption increases more it comes from animal flesh and excretions vs plants
3. Cost is a large factor in how much animal flesh is consumed
4. Production of foods from poultry flesh is profitable
5. Foods from poultry flesh are more affordable than foods from other animal bodies, driving up the consumption of poultry flesh.

I don't think broiler bones last a week in ground. I have accidentally even eaten a few (don't ask, was stoned) and didn't get any issues. Still don't recommend anyone trying.