The Korea Rural Economic Institute said Monday that Koreans consumed 66.9 kilograms of seafood per person in 2001, up from the 66.8 kilograms per person the Japanese consumed in 2000, which had been the highest rate recorded.

Also, comparing the pure consumption of seafood - leaving out head and bones and calculating only edible parts - the average Korean eats 2.74 kilograms more earch year than the average Japanese.

After Japan, the biggest consumers of seafood are Taiwan, at 40.3 kilograms per person per year, France, at 31.3, and Sweden, at 30.9.

Lee Gye-im, a researcher at the economic institute, said, “Our country is surrounded on three sides by the ocean, so our people like seafood; and with rising incomes, more people are buying fish and shellfish instead of meat."

The institute conducted a survey of 889 households in Korea. Fifty-one percent of the respondents said they preferred seafood because of "good taste," 35.2 percent because it was "healthy." Also, 59.9 percent said that fish was better for you than meat.

Koreans consumed more anchovies than any other kind of fish, at 14.99 grams per person per day. Next was Alaskan Pollack, at 9.12 grams, mackerel at 7.57, squid at 14.83 and shrimp at 5.36. Consumption of raw fish was up 5.3 percent.

Compared to the diet the average Korean ate 25 years ago, meat consumption is now four times higher and milk ten times higher. However, rice consumption has decreased by a quarter. Barley, used as a substitute for rice in the nation's impoverished days, is now only 5 percent of what it once was. (Park Jong-se, jspark@chosun.com )