Agricultural History Review, Volume 71 Part 2 (2023), pp. 258–283

Since the second half of the twentieth century, alongside the culmination of the modern nutritional transition and other socio-economic changes, high-income countries have been characterized by two kinds of food consumption models: one marked by increased intake of mass agro-industrial foodstuffs; and another consisting of decreasing calorific intake accompanied by a rising consumption of more elaborate and processed products. Focussing on Spain, our objective is to show how the diffusion of these two consumption patterns have affected inequalities in consumption by income and regions, specifically in meat consumption during the period 1964–2018. By exploring direct sources of food consumption, we show that, up until the 1980s, the modern nutritional transition was neither attained by all income classes nor in all of the territory of Spain. Moreover, inequalities in meat consumption have intensified in recent years. Finally, we argue that meat consumption during this period conforms to the definition of the food consumption model provided by Malassis.