One thing that unites America? Our common love of cheese.

The consumption of cheese and butter in the United States is at an all-time high, Bloomberg reports, citing a December report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Cheese consumption has risen especially sharply in the last two years, now clocking in higher than it has since the government began keeping tabs on it, in 1975.

The amount of butter Americans are eating has also climbed to a 40-year high, up 25 percent in the past decade alone, reflecting changing consumer tastes and shifting scientific guidance on fats. (Case in point? McDonald’s recently moved fast to ditch margarine in its Egg McMuffins and use butter instead.)

Meanwhile, the amount of milk we’re drinking is on the decline and has been for decades, thanks to the diversification of our beverage options — more juices, sports drinks, sodas. So it’s kind of a wash for dairy farmers. And cows.

“We’re just seeing a greater trend toward cheese consumption in people’s everyday diets,” Matthew Mattke, director of the Market360 Dairy advisory team at the commodity consulting firm Stewart-Peterson, Inc., in West Bend, Wisconsin, told Bloomberg. “With the beverage market, there’s a lot more choices. But you can’t replace cheese on a pizza.”

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