To place humans on the world food network, the ecologists carefully analyzed the food supply for 176 countries from 1961 to 2009. They got the data from statistics kept by the .

Diets — and thus rankings on the food chain — varied widely from country to country. For instance, in parts of Africa and Southeast Asia, people eat still primarily a vegetarian diet, with up to 96 percent of their food coming from plants. At the other extreme, diets in Iceland, Mongolia and Sweden are about 50 percent meat and fish.

Not surprisingly, the U.S. ranked closer to the meat-loving countries than the plant-lovers. But American’s location on the global food chain has actually dropped a small amount since 1961 — perhaps because we’ve finally started on those burgers and steaks.