Fans of the big game often times don't realize the important role that agriculture carries on the Super Bowl. But now that the champions have been named, the commercials have been seen and the half-time performance has been both loved and hated, it's time to take a look and see just why Super Bowl Sunday has quickly become the second biggest American eating holiday of the year – just behind Thanksgiving - according to Dairyherd.com.

If you had great intentions of eating healthier in 2016, but decided to use your "cheat-day" on Super Bowl Sunday, there is a pretty good chance that you didn't just fall off the healthy-eating wagon, you probably ran that healthy-eating wagon right into the ditch! According to the Calorie Council Control, the average American will shovel in about 2,400 calories during the game.

But the Super Bowl food isn't the only way that agriculture plays a part at the big game. After reading this list, there is just 10 more reasons to be thankful for farmers!

 

  • 1

    Footballs

    We can thank cows for one of the major components of the Super Bowl. According to Dairyherd.com, one cowhide will make about 20 footballs. On the average, about 120 game balls are used during the Super Bowl, including 12 kicker balls, meaning about six cow hides were tossed around the stadium Sunday.

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  • 2

    Chicken Wings

    The first chicken wings were fried up at a bar in New York in 1964 and the tradition has continued. On Super Bowl Sunday, about 1.25 billion chicken wings will be consumed by football fans. That's enough chicken wings to circle the Grand Canyon 120 times.

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  • 3

    Beer

    The real MVP of the Super Bowl should have gone to the barley farmers! About 325.5 million gallons of beer are drank on Super Bowl Sunday. And with one bushel of barley producing about 565 12-ounce beers, some basic math will tell you that 6,145,132.74 bushels of barley are used to make the brews for the game.

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  • 4

    Avocados

    You might have noticed a commercial during the game for a product that you probably wouldn't have seen in the past - an ad for avocados. About 278 million avocados, mostly smashed up into that sweet guac, were eaten during the Super Bowl, which is about a 15 percent increase in avocados from 2015. But avocados are small, that can't be a lot, right? Well, to put it in perspective, 278 million avocados is enough to fill a football field - end zone to end zone - in a pile 53 feet high.

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  • 5

    Ribs

    According to the National Pork Board, about 10 million pounds of ribs are sold during Super Bowl week! Not only is that a lot of ribs - that's a lot of napkins!

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  • 6

    Bacon

    Everything is better with bacon, right? The National Pork Board says that not only do we love our pork ribs, but 12.5 million pounds of bacon was expected to be consumed during the Super Bowl. That's a lot of "bacon-wrapped" goodness!

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  • 7

    Potato Chips

    How many bowls of chips did you see at your Super Bowl party? Considering it takes four pounds of raw potatoes to make one pound of chips, we can thank potato farmers for feeding America 44.8 million pounds of spuds in one day, or enough potatoes for 11.2 million pounds of potato chips.

  • 8

    Hamburgers

    Estimating that each hamburger patty weighs about a quarter of a pound, it's safe to estimate that about 3.5 billion pounds of ground beef were placed on buns during Super Bowl Sunday. And, I suppose if you add in the bacon that is used to top those burgers, maybe the bacon total should go up some, too?

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  • 9

    Pizza

    An average of about four million pizzas were expected to be delivered before, during or after the Super Bowl. Estimating that each of those pizzas contains eight ounces of cheese, that means that dairy farmers can get a huge thank you, too! Those eight ounces of cheese per pizza, estimates out to about two million pounds of cheese or 20,000,000 pounds of whole milk.

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  • 10

    Popcorn

    It's not just for movies anymore! According to Dairyherd.com, about 3.8 million pounds of popcorn was expected to be served during the big game.

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