There were many ways for ancient people to eat meat. The meat of livestock can be called meat, but if you open the menus of restaurants in the north and south of China, you will find that the meat on the table of Han people today refers to pork, and the difference lies in the name of livestock species, usually beef. Meat, fish, pork, moo Shu pork and other Beijing-style pork and mutton-all pork, while onion and red bull tenderloin beef clearly show that the ingredients used are beef and mutton. Pork dishes are more common. However, in the history of China's diet, pork did not occupy a high position in ancient times. This paragraph can be interpreted as different kinds of meat allowed by different categories. Another explanation is that beef is more noble than mutton, and mutton is more noble than dog meat and pork.

After Wei and Jin Dynasties, a large number of Hu people settled in northern China. In the Northern and Southern Dynasties, Galand of Luoyang said that "sheep are the most prolific on the road". Qi Shu in the Northern Wei Dynasty and Si Shi Zhuan Yao in the Early Tang Dynasty and the Late Five Dynasties are two important agricultural books in ancient China, which attach great importance to raising sheep. Higher than raising pigs. In the Tang Dynasty, the Li family established the lineage of Xianbei people. Royal aristocrats all like to eat mutton, and the folk sheep style is getting bigger and bigger.

In the Song Dynasty, mutton gradually dominated the dining table in China. The royal decree requires the royal family to eat only mutton. Su Dongpo's love for pork is unparalleled. When answering Bi Zhongju, he compared his friends' achievements in Buddhism to dragon meat and compared his life to pork. Although the aristocrats in Song Dynasty were like mutton, the consumption of folk pork should not be underestimated. According to the Tokyo Dream, dozens of people from Kaifeng, the capital, came to Beijing with tens of thousands of pigs bought from Sichuan. The scene is spectacular. In the Ming Dynasty, eating pork became very popular. According to the History of the Forbidden City in Ming Dynasty, the royal family will eat pork, pig enema, pig's head meat and so on during the New Year.

Over the past 40 years of reform and opening up, the living standards of China people have been improving day by day, and the grain consumption structure has also undergone great changes. The most prominent is the increase in consumption of meat products. When people's income level is relatively low, they mainly eat and the food content is mainly food; When the material base is gradually improved, the share of cereals and potatoes is gradually replaced by meat, eggs and milk.