1,000 tons of smoked meat

2 days to go: feast ends 40-day fasting period

A festive meal ends Lent: millions of colored eggs, tons of lamb, Easter ham, and smoked meat land on plates. So the healthy spinach on Maundy Thursday didn't really matter.

Around 50 million colored eggs are sold in stores around Easter. Twice as many white and brown fresh eggs are sold in the two months leading up to the most important Christian holiday. After that, however, Austrians have had enough: sales drop by ten percent in the following two weeks.

Man does not live by eggs alone
Almost 230 tons of sheep and lamb meat are consumed in Austrian households around Easter. In the month before and after, it is only about a third of that. The peak is not quite as pronounced for cooked ham, which is apparently particularly popular at Christmas and reaches its peak in terms of sales in December. The situation is different for smoked meat, which is consumed almost twice as much at Easter (almost 1,000 tons) as in "normal" months.

Maundy Thursday is "Spinach Day"
But before the calorie battle, people used to fast on Maundy Thursday: with spinach! Although Austrians, with an annual per capita consumption of around half a kilogram, are not exactly among the most passionate "Popeyes," four times the "normal" amount is consumed on this day.

Converted to annual sales, this represents seven percent of the more than six million frozen spinach packages sold each year during Holy Week.

Aversion to cabbage and spinach can be genetic
For those who cannot or do not want to warm to these vegetables, science provides an excuse: aversion to cabbage and spinach can be genetic. It mainly affects people who, thanks to a gene variant, are particularly sensitive to certain bitter substances. This is what scientists at the German Institute of Human Nutrition claim to have discovered.