Environmental Graffiti

Nearly 20,000 spectators were on hand to watch 1,250 volunteers grill twelve metric tons of beef in Montevideo Sunday.

Moo. Image from brianbutko on Flickr

Using a grill that was reportedly 1.5 km long, Uruguay set a new world record for “world’s biggest barbecue” while raising awareness of the tiny country’s top export.

Uruguay, a small South American nation north of Argentina, easily beat the previous record of four tons, held by Mexico in 2006.

The barbecue, which has become a point of national pride (now that the record has been set) represents the 415 Million pounds of beef that were exported from Uruguay last year -an astonishing amount for a nation of just 3.2 Million people. That’s just shy of 130 pounds per person!

Fortunately, mature beef cattle can weigh over ten times that amount, so Uruguay is in no danger of being overrun, but is nevertheless a phenomenal exporter of beef, and apparently, not bad behind the grill either.

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