The Many Sides of a Turkey

Thinking of turkeys, West Wing’s President Bartlett is a good place to start:

Thanksgiving Dinner

Big Birds

Now more than 30 pounds, our average commercial turkey was close to 19 pounds in 1967. Breeding, though, has given us big birds. In a way less is more because we get more meat from fewer birds.

Weighing 50 to 70 pounds, the largest turkeys (the breeders) are really big. Next are the regular toms. No one’s dad, the regular toms reach 40 pounds in 16-19 weeks and then become ground or processed. Similarly, heavy hens do not become moms. They average 22-24 pounds and then are sold whole to become deli cuts, breast rolls or Thanksgiving dinners.  NPR tells us that, if humans were similarly bred, we would become adults at age 10 and weigh 300 pounds.

You can see below that almost a century ago turkeys were much smaller:

Pardoned Birds

Each year, a farmer is selected to raise the “presidential flock.” Protected from weather extremes in a barn, those chosen birds eat corn and soybeans and get used to music, loud noise, and flashing lights. Then, in Washington, D.C., they stay at the Willard Hotel. After, this year’s birds, Liberty and Bell (Chocolate and Chip, in 2022), will go to the University of Minnesota’s College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences.

At the Willard, this is Liberty or Bell (I am not sure):

Dinner

During the first week in November, the cost of an average Thanksgiving dinner for ten was $61.17. As you can see below, the American Farm Bureau Federation included the cranberries, the stuffing, and the pumpkin pie (really–a mix?):

Our Bottom Line: The Cost of Thanksgiving

As economists, we know that cost means sacrifice. Not necessarily money, it just reminds us that choosing is refusing. As a result, we can look at the cost of Thanksgiving in different ways:

Thanksgiving costs us wages that we could have used elsewhere:

If the following graph had extended to 2023, then, nominally and inflation adjusted, this year’s meal cost would be down from last year’s $64.05:

Noting the 2023 price drop, we can thank the turkey. This year its price per pound is down 5.6 percent.

My sources and more: The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) always has the Thanksgiving dinner prices. From there, Wired,  NPR and Business Insider and The Washington Post (the source of the Willard image) told more about the turkeys. With more of an economic focus (although from 2021), AEI also came in handy.

Please note that several of today’s sentences were in a previous econlife post.