Abstract
We investigate the hypothesis that the global human diet will become carnivorous in the future. A long-term view of the development of global animal-source calorie consumption shares and human trophic levels is presented based on FAO food balance sheet and World Bank data. Our results show that across an analytically constructed period of 248 years both measures have stagnated in high-income countries since around 1985. Our findings imply that global food consumption patterns are not likely to endlessly increase the environmental burden associated with animal agriculture.