Meat Consumption Pattern in Mettur Taluk, Salem District of Tamil Nadu

Author: Nalini P.*, J. Muralidharan, V. Sankar, P. Senthilkumar and N. Sri Balaji

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Abstract

A study on meat consumption pattern in Mettur taluk, Salem district of Tamil Nadu has been conducted with a sample size of 100. The results revealed that most of the respondents were in the age group of 30-50 years (45%), from agricultural background 52%, rearing animals 87% (at least backyard poultry) with the family size of less than 5 members (52%). The annual income was less than 2 lakh (41%) and their educational status was higher secondary (39%), 2% were vegetarians and 98% were non-vegetarians. Most of them were consuming meat at-least once in a week (55.10%). Majority of the respondents were consuming meat on Sunday followed by Wednesday and they were buying from meat shop as fresh (100%). All non-vegetarian people were eating chevon and poultry meat (100%), mutton 84.69%, pork 69.39%, fish 48.98% and beef 6.12%. The preference of meat was more for poultry meat (38.77%) followed by mutton (26.53%), chevon, (22.45%), beef (5.10%), pork (4.08%) and fish (3.06%). At the same time consumers were eating more frequently mutton (58.16%) followed by poultry (20.41%), chevon (15.30%), beef (6.12%) and no one was eating pork and fish frequently.

Keywords

Meat, consumption pattern, preference

Conclusion

From the above study it was concluded that people in Mettur taluk of Salem district, Tamil Nadu were eating more quantity of mutton than other type of meat because of habituation and availability, their preference based on taste was poultry desi meat and chevon. Cost of desi chicken and chevon meat was equal in the studied area (Rs.650/- per kg). But most of the people were not knowing about the processed meat and the nutritive value of the meat. Most of the respondents had the annual income less than 2 lakhs per annum and approximately eating 13kg of meat per annum it was more than the ICMR recommendation of 11kg per annum. They were meeting this quantity of meat mainly by backyard poultry and sheep/goat farming for their own use.

References

INTRODUCTION Consumption behaviour of the meat and its products is a deciding factor in the development of livestock sector in general and a specific enterprise in particular (Thammaraju and Suryanarayanan 2005). In India meat production is 6.3 million tons per annum and ranked 5th in the world, in terms of production volume that is 3% of the total meat production in the world (www.mofpi.gov.in). Many factors influences the meat consumption pattern it includes sustained income economic growth, a growing urban population, rapidly growing middle class, changing life styles; improvement in transportation and storage facilities. Besides that cultural aspect, religion, customs and economic situations have an effect on meat consumption worldwide (Sowmya and Samsai 2020). Income, age, sex, ethnicity, convenience and price have significant impact on food items demanded by consumers (Eswara Rao et al., 2017). Meat consumption has the largest environmental impact ranging from local to global. In Indian context, culture, traditions, customs and taboos influence meat consumption to a great extent especially in the rural societies (Devi et al., 2014). Hence in the present study the meat consumption pattern in Mettur taluk, Salem district, Tamil Nadu was studied. MATERIALS AND METHOD The study was conducted in Mettur taluk of Salem district, Tamil Nadu, purposively due to the proximity to this station. Geographical area of Mettur taluk is hilly, half of the taluk is dry area and another half is located on the Cauvery river side. One hundred households were selected randomly in Mettur taluk to collect information regarding consumption of meat and their preference. This area is the main breeding tract of the Mecheri sheep and Salem Black goat. Mecheri sheep is the most common sheep breed in Tamil Nadu with high dressing percentage and superior skin quality. As per 20th livestock census population the Salem district has cattle - 6,11,161, buffalo - 46,420, goat – 5,57,541, sheep - 3,37,733, pig - 7,622, broiler - 12,85,325 and desi bird - 11,11,120. Only the meat consumption pattern was taken for this study and the data were subjected to statistical analysis and the results are presented in table and expressed in frequency and percentage. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Demographic information of the respondents are presented in Table 1. The results shows that most of the respondents were in the age group of below 30-50 years (45%) followed by >50 years (28%) and <30 years (27%). Similar result was reported by Babu et al. (2010). Likewise, most of the respondents had agricultural background followed by private job, business and government job. Educational qualification of the respondents shows that most of them were higher secondary education (39%) followed by primary education (36%), degree (13%) and illiterate (12%). Most of the respondents have their annual income of less than 2 lakh (41%) followed by 2-4 lakh (26%), 4-6 lakh (19%) and above 6 lakh (14%). Family size was mostly less than 5 members (69%) followed by more than 5 members (18%) and 5 members (13%). About 87% of the respondents were rearing animals (10% poultry, 38% poultry and sheep/goat, 16% poultry, sheep/goat and cow/buffalo, 23% not rearing any livestock). Food habit of the respondents is presented in Table 2. It shows that majority of the respondents were non-vegetarians (98%) and the vegetarians were only 2%. Reason for consuming meat were habituation (52.04%) followed by taste (26.53%), nutritive value (17.34%) and availability (4.08%) and the reasons for not consuming meat were religious (1%), dislike (1%) and affordability (0%). Out of one hundred respondents selected for the present study, only 98 respondents are in the Table 3-13 because the remaining 2 respondents were vegetarians. So the data presented is the expression of 98 respondents. Table 3 showed that, most of the respondents were consuming meat weekly once (55.10%) then weekly twice or more (33.67%), fortnightly (9.18%) and monthly (2.04%). Similarly, Eswara Rao et al. (2017) also reported that 55.0 percent people in Gannavaram district of Andhra Pradesh had meat at least once in a weak. Regarding to the type of meat eating, 42.86% of the respondents were eating mutton, chevon, poultry meat, pork and fish, 20.14 percent of the respondents eating mutton, chevon, poultry meat and pork, 15.31 percent of the respondents eating mutton, chevon, poultry meat and fish, 15.31% of the respondents eating chevon and poultry meat and 6.12 percent of the respondents were eating mutton, chevon, poultry meat, beef, pork and fish. People who are living in cauvery river belt were eating fish but most of the old aged people in dry area were not eating fish because of the habituation but the young generation people have started to eat fish because of availability by development of transport. Table 4 shows that, majority of the respondents liked poultry desi meat (24.49%) followed by mutton (26.53%), chevon (22%), broiler meat (14.28%), pork (7.10%) and beef (5.10%). Similar results were reported by Eswara Rao at al. (2017). In the present study young generation people was preferred poultry meat especially desi meat and not the broiler meat. The reason for the preference was taste (45.92%), followed by habituation (27.55%), availability (19.39%) and low cost (7.14%). Mostly people were cooking poultry desi meat in home but the young generation people were eating broiler meat in the form of chicken briyani, chicken 65, chicken fried rice etc in restaurants, fast food shops and road side shops. All the non-vegetarian people were eating poultry meat and chevon. Regarding the type of meat consumption, 85.71 percent were eating mutton followed by pork 65.3% and beef 5.12%. Similar type of results was reported by Babu et al. (2010); Koizume et al. (2001); Thammiraju and Suryanarayana (2005). The respondents who were eating beef are consuming beef on weekly basis and the people who were eating pork were consuming mostly in summer, because they believe that consuming pork reduces the body heat. People having annual income less than 2 lakh per annum but consumed more meat because those peoples were having agricultural background rearing backyard poultry and 2 to 5 numbers of sheep or goat for their own use. Reason for less consumption of beef, pork and fish are presented in Table 5, it shows that majority of the respondents (41.84%) avoided beef, pork and fish because of religious sentiments followed by social restrictions (23.47%), unavailability (21.43%), dislike (7.14%) and health care (6.12%) reasons. Reason of religious sentiments was mainly for beef consumption, unavailability was for pork and dislike was for fish. Reason for more consumption of mutton than chevon is presented in Table 6. The result showed that habituation (53.06%) and more availability (34.69%) of the mutton leads more consumption of mutton than chevon. The taste (8.16%) and low cost (4.08%) were not the main reasons for consumption of more mutton than chevon. The study area being the home tract of Mecheri sheep, many respondents reared Mecheri ram lambs for their own consumption purpose. They also slaughter ram lambs for the temple rituals. In Table 7, awareness about the nutritive value is presented, about 57.14 percent of the respondents had not known about the nutritive value of meat and 42.85 percent of the respondents knew about nutritive value of the meat. Young generation and educated people knew about protein and fat composition in meat but the old and illiterate people did not know about protein, fat etc. in meat, but they expressed the importance of meat for their health. Kind of meat eating more frequently and quantity of meat buying at one time is presented in Table 8. About 58.16 percent of the respondents were eating mutton more frequently (54.08% people buying 1.0kg at a time) followed by poultry meat 20.41 percent (52.04% people buying 1.5kg at a time), chevon 15.31 percent (50% people buying 1.0kg at a time), beef 6.12 percent (4.08% people buying 1.5kg at a time) and no one was eating pork more frequently (41.84% people buying 1.5kg at a time). Choice of edible by-products is presented in Table 9. The results showed that majority of the people like stomach & intestine (40.82%) followed by head (26.53%), liver (24.49%), feet (6.12%) and bone by (2.04%). In the studied area intestine along with blood of sheep and goats cooked as gravy was delicious side dish for idli and dosa for morning breakfast. Table 10 showed the place of purchase of meat. All (100%) the non-vegetarian people were buying meat in retail shops. The same result was reported by Eswara Rao et al. (2017). No one was buying meat in slaughter house or super markets. But the place of preference was to buy meat from sharing meat (58.16%). Sharing means group of people (8-10 mostly) used to buy an animal, they will slaughter and share the meat and edible offals among themselves. People like this type of buying meat because they know the age and health of the animal at the same time they could get more meat for low cost when compared to retail shop price. This kind of sharing meat is being followed during festival time like Diwali, Pongal and local festivals. Next to sharing meat, people preferred to buy fresh meat from retail shop (25.51%), in retail shop they would get meat on all days with different variety. Other than this, people prefer to slaughter on their own (16.33%), mostly they adopt this method of slaughtering for temple festival, home function/celebrations. Table 11, represents results of preference of processed/frozen meat, about 73.47 percent of the respondents did not had idea about processed meat and 26 percent did not prefer the processed meat. The present result was in accordance with Kiran et al. (2018) who observed that consumer awareness about frozen meat was very low compared to fresh meat in Southern India. Reason for non-preference of processed meat is presented in Table 12, it shows that about 84.69 respondents told, that fresh meat was more hygienic, 8.16 percent unavailability of processed meat and 7.14 percent respondents told not tried the processed meat. Except in main cities processed meats were not sold in small cities and towns because it requires proper cold storage facility. This may also be a reason for people buying meat as fresh in meat shops. Type of cooking is presented in Table 13. Indian cooking style is different than other countries because Indian people prefer more spices. The results of the study shows that 45.92 percent were cooking meat in a watery gravy method, 34.69 percent in a thick gravy method, 19% in frying method and no people followed tandoori or smoking. Frying method is adopted mostly for poultry meat not for mutton and chevon. Table 14 shows the results of kind of animal slaughtered during temple festival or home function/celebration. In this 45.91% respondents were slaughtered goat followed by sheep (34.91%), poultry (17.35%), pig (2.04%) and no one slaughtered bull or buffalo. About 2.04 percent respondents were sacrificed pig but it was allowed in specific temples not in all temples. In poultry means cock only sacrificed but this was allowed in all temples where sacrifice was allowed.

How to cite this article

Nalini P., J. Muralidharan, V. Sankar, P. Senthilkumar and N. Sri Balaji (2022). Meat Consumption Pattern in Mettur Taluk, Salem District of Tamil Nadu. Biological Forum – An International Journal, 14(2a): 238-243.