Yeah, I get that the term can be a bit misleading. The article about India says they use a 'ton' of gold for jewelry. I don't know the exact numbers, but electronics use gold too. So, if we take out those uses, what's left is probably for store of value (CB's).
My understanding is that Indian, and other Southeast Asian, gold jewelry is functionally used as a store of value. They often melt some down when they need to dip into their savings and they pass it down to later generations to give them a financial cushion.
Electronics and other industrial uses are what I would think of as true consumption, because it can be uneconomical to recover the gold.
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Spot on! Jewelry is definitely a good way to store value. And the whole gold-in-food thing? That's just plain weird consumption!
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Who's putting gold in their food? Based on an episode of House MD, I believe that is severely poisonous.
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