Thursday, February 2, 2012

Super Bowl Sunday gluttony

We all know that Super Bowl Sunday is second only to Thanksgiving when it comes to food consumption among Americans. But, holy guacamole, get a load of these statistics, as highlighted today in the Wall Street Journal:

- 4.4 million pizzas will be sold on Sunday by Pizza Hut, Dominos and Papa John's--more than five pizzas for every man, woman and child in the Super Bowl host city of Indianapolis.

- 111 million gallons of beer will be consumed--enough to fill 168 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

- 43.2 million pounds of tortilla chips are eaten on Super Bowl Sunday, reinforcing the decision by Doritos to be a Super Bowl advertiser. That's the equivalent of 96 Statues of Liberty!

- Not to be outdone, we will consume 45.8 million pounds of potato chips--no word if these are baked or not--which equates to 10 space shuttles.

- You want wings, you say? Okay, 100 million pounds of wings will be served on Sunday--1.25 billion pieces, enough to circle the Earth more than twice.

- Pretzels bring up the rear in the salty snack category but 13.2 million pounds will be consumed, no small amount of sodium being inhaled by we football fans.

- And, finally, as guacamole has grown in popularity, the use of avocadoes has risen to where we now consume 71.4 million pounds of the fruit. If you stacked, on a football field, the 143 million avocadoes which make up this amount, that structure would rise 27.5 feet above the playing surface.

It was this latter statistic which caused the executive director of the Avocado Board to pontificate, "avocado people are party people!" Rock on, guac lovers...

(Source: Nielsen, Wall Street Journal)

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